beautiful

This weekend was amazing.

Saturday we took a day tour to Philip Island. A white van-bus vehicle pulled up to the front of our hotel at around 11:00a. [waiting for the bus] [getting on the bus]
[our Melbourne-born tour guide, Peter]
After paying, our full tour bus left Melbourne and headed out with penguin stuffed animals as souvenirs.[our bus]
As we headed through the suburbs and into more sparsely populated areas, we began to see cows and horses grazing in the grass. Australia, in general, is a pretty flat area, but after awhile, we started to see rolling hills full of green grass. I've actually never seen so much green at once before, and it was pretty amazing. It seems that much of Australia is preserved naturally, and the parts they do touch, they do so carefully so that as much of the environment is kept as is. They are quite the environmentalists here, but it is very nice and well worth the effort. Come to think of it, much of this day was so beautiful that even the pictures posted here don't do justice. [Toodarin village - toilet stop][cows in the green]
Our first official stop was to Gurdies Winery for wine tasting. It was actually pretty good, although I am not quite the wine connoisseur yet.INTRODUCING: Tomas, PhD student from Austria who is here in David's lab for three weeks.

Australian animals, anyone? We literally have hundreds of pictures from this - so cute!
[wombat]
Tasmanian devil on the prowl. Just kidding! His day consists of running around the little enclosure, so here he is, mid-run.
[vicious, eh?]
[wallabies - like little kangaroos, but fat]
They're so lazy! :P [koalas]
Although they lOOKED like sheep, they were quite nOT like sheep. They had such long necks, and when you got close to them with food, they'd stick their necks out and grab at you. They had teeth too. [aparcas? or llamas? or something like that]
[One of the more embarrassing moments of my life caught on video]
But here are some sheep. (:
[mini horses, maybe?]
These birds were very amusing. They talked, but the only thing they knew how to say was "Hello," and then laugh crazily, almost cackling, while moving their heads frantically about.
The dingoes were very cute too. They're basically Australian dogs, but I guess they eat vegetarian too..
And here come the kangaroos!
[there's a little joey in this one's pouch]

[Liz got bombarded]
Some of the kangaroos were huge! They'd grab onto your hand and pull it down.
On the way to Philip Island, the view from the bus was beautiful, but they came out a little blurry.

Driving on the wrong side of the road? I think not.
On Philip Island, we first stopped at the Nobbies for more beautiful scenery, sunset, and little penguins in burrows!
[zoom in or enlarge! - there are two little penguins hiding in there]
Then came the highlight of the trip - seeing the penguins come out of the ocean! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but the basic idea is that these little penguins (that live in the burrows) swim all the way out to Tasmania and back everyday. They arrive back at Philip Island at night, out of the ocean, and return to their burrows with food to feed their young. They travel in groups and at first, are very wary upon coming out of the ocean, so they wait a loong time. Then they run quickly across the beach so they don't get eaten by predators. We sat on the beach waiting for the penguins to come out of the ocean. The seagulls would come and swoop down, though, and scare the penguins back into the ocean. It was almost like the seagulls were the bullies playing games with the penguins. But when they did summon enough courage, to come out they were so cute when they waddled on the sand! Then as we were walking back up the path, there were penguins all around us, climbing the hill to get back to their homes. That was probably the best part - seeing them up close. The stars were amazing too, since this happened during the night. Because we were out on an island in the middle of the ocean with no pollution, the Milky Way (and I think Liz found the Southern Cross), was extremely visible. There were millions and millions of stars in the sky; I have never seen the sky filled with so many nor have I ever seen them so clearly!! It was like a page out of an astronomy book or calendar filled with pictures of the galaxy.
After the penguins, we stopped for really good pizza. We all appear a bit fatty since the island was pretty cold, and we bundled up a LOT.[Foodworx anyone?]
Sunday after church, we went back to the Queen Victoria market and hAD to try the doughnuts, since there's always a long line for them, and they smell really good.
Didgeridoos are really hard to play..
.. and camels have waaay too many joints. [look at how they sit - their legs bend in at least three different places!]
David invited over for dinner with his family so we made our way over to his house, after getting a little confused by the tram, but we have now figured it out.
It was very good - all vegetarian, with soup, homemade lasagna and gnochi, salad, some curry, and rice. And the best part was, David prepared the entire meal! Ooh, and there was dessert too, with fresh fruit and extremely good vanilla ice cream.