Last weekend was the opening for the Melbourne International Arts Festival. There was a theme of bells and the two free shows that I saw both incorporated them. I’ll try to upload video to youtube to show you one of the shows, the ringing of the federation bells (done in a very peculiar way...). The other show was incredible, making a moving mobile with trapeze artists and musicians as the hanging parts. I don’t have photos but here’s a video someone else took: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P31hmAP2Ua4
This weekend Brian, Mike, and I went camping on the Mornington Peninsula. The MP makes up the Eastern half of Port Philip, the northern most point of the bay being the location of Melbourne. Its a very touristy area, although surprisingly uninteresting. There were lots of pretty beaches and some nice overlooks. All of the other attractions, wine tasting and spas, were a little out of our price range for the weekend. Even finding a camp ground was difficult seeing as the camp sites were only open beginning in November.
I faithfully took up my position as the lost navigator (I swear I have a good sense of direction but these guys expect way too much!) and was verbally abused for a good portion of the weekend until I let Mike navigate (read: he got to sit in the front seat and I had the map in the back because he couldn’t figure out how to read it). Brian was the driver and Mike sat in the back seat and attempted to listen to his biology lectures on his ipod but fell asleep quickly instead.
At the very tip of the MP is Point Nepean (which I always read as Napoleon) which was an old military base. The Australians were afraid that the Germans and the Russians were going to attack them in attempt to jeer at the British in the first and second world wars. Signs at the base claim that the first shot of WWI and the first allied shot of WWII were both from Point Nepean. Both were warning shots. The Point never actually saw any real military action, although it did have some huge guns that could shoot 7 inch bullets 9 km out to sea. It was fun to explore all of the underground tunnels and the strange little rooms that made up the under hill fortresses. The coast line is really pretty. On one side the ocean crashes and dashes rocks against one another. On the other the bay is peaceful and makes up a nice wading beach. In the 1950s the Australian Prime Minister vanished while swimming at the beach and was never seen again. It took them 50 years to finally declare him dead by drowning (although his body was never recovered).
We went to a state park that had some really cool rock formations, the best being a mammoth rock called the “London Bridge” (although it looks nothing like the real London Bridge or the one that is a part of the Twelve Apostles). It formed this huge cave with a small opening in the back (small being a relative term, I could easily have walked out of it upright had I been Jesus and could walk on water) with lots of tide pools. I got to hold star fish with 7 or 8 legs. Some were tiny, the size of a 50 cent piece, while others were larger than my hand. It’s really cool to feel their suckers grab on to you and pulsate as they attempt to figure out their new location. There were also tiny fish and tons of hermit crabs. We decided to climb to the top of the rock, which probably wasn’t a good idea judging on how hard it was to get down again, where there was a beautiful view of the surrounding cove and a view straight out to Tasmania (which is way too far away to be seen). Another park had a really cool point where the two sides were under very different conditions. One was calm and would have had tide pools had we been there at low tide while the other had ferocious waves that crashed against the shore. There was a “sand beach” but the definition of sand that they were using was circular rocks. Every time the waves crashed into the beach and receded back toward the ocean the rocks would grind against one another. It was awesome to listen to, quintessential ocean.
The highlight of the trip for Mike was seeing a wild echidna. It was pretty cool and very spiky, larger than I had expected.
In other news, I’m now coming home December 20th and also traveling to New Zealand for two weeks. It should be fun!
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