JULY 5 - 7 NEXT | HOME | CONTENTS | ABOUT | SEND EMAIL Overnight Observations Sunday, July 5, 1998; Sydney, New South Wales - Melbourne, Victoria I had been eager to leave for weeks. Although living in Sydney was excellent, the novelty of exploring the city had worn off, and my stale software job was driving me mad. Winter had settled in; the warm evenings when we would go swimming down at Bondi after work were long gone. Routine had crept into my days. Many of my friends had been travelling for weeks or months already. Postcards on the table when I arrived home in the evenings shone with adventure and delight; Denise tried to arrange the cards beside each other on the shelf, but they were too crowded and fell over like dominoes. I took it as a sign that it was time to go. We had our own itinerary, a detailed and regimentally ordered list of destinations, departure codes, schedules, and activities that I had put together whilst idle at work. The veteran travel agent had smiled when I handed him draft one - few backpackers produced an itinerary sporting three different fonts. What can I say? Its not easy to be a spontaneous traveller when you have eight months to make a plan. My departure from Sydney, although a big deal in my own mind, was remarkably unceremonious. Farewells had been taken over the course of the weekend, so only my flatmates saw the door close behind me. I walked down to Bondi Road and waited for a 380 to come up the hill from the beach, as I had done so many times before. My mind ran through a last minute checklist and I fidgeted with the straps of my backpack. Despite my best efforts at minimalist packing, it was bulging at the seams. For the moment, the novelty of wearing the backpack again numbed me to its considerable weight. I took the bus to Bondi Junction, and then a train to Sydney's central bus station. I was catching an overnight bus to Melbourne, where I would rejoin my girlfriend and travelling companion Denise, and our mutual friend Keara, whose itinerary briefly paralleled our own. Denise had flown to Melbourne that morning, as her international ticket package had included the flight. I was condemned to travel overland, but was not unhappy with my circumstances. A substantial road trip would ease me into the travelling frame of mind far more gently than a two-hour airport-to-airport hop. To be honest, I was quite excited at the prospect of an overnight bus journey - I had never taken a trip that way before. The closest equivalent experience I could recall was when I was six years old and the Pope visited Ireland. Returning home after the event, I was trapped with my family in gridlocked traffic for six hours on the outskirts of Galway. I don't remember a single thing John Paul II said that day, but the eternity spent in the car remains clear in my memory. I was looking forward to the Melbourne roadtrip as another such memorable experience. I certainly wasn't doing it for the view. It was already dark when we left Sydney shortly before seven. The McCafferty's bus was only half full, with plenty of empty rows, but my assigned seat was next to a tall and heavily-built guy about the same age as myself. He didn't look too happy as I sat in, forcing him to retreat fully and awkwardly to his own rented space by the window. At least I could dangle my legs out into the aisle. I was tempted by the empty rows in front of us, but guessed that there was assigned seating for a reason. Knowing my luck, I would stretch out into an empty pair of seats, fall asleep, and be roughly wakened and evicted later on by a petty and irritated old bag. In the meantime, my assigned seat in the now full bus would undoubtedly have been filled by another grouchy old lady, whose rasping snores would only be matched by her unflinching stubbornness. Thoughts of standing in the aisle all night convinced me to remain where I was. I made a brief attempt to make conversation with my companion, but he proved as responsive as a floating goldfish, so I kept to myself. We stopped in the suburban town of Liverpool as we headed out of Sydney. I became a little edgy when an Asian woman and several young children climbed on board shattering the padded silence with excited yelling and clamouring. Her wailing baby didn't bode well for the rest of the trip either. Bigfoot beside me cursed under his breath. They clambered into rows just in front of us and across the aisle. The odd child out had to sit beside an old man travelling alone because the bus had filled up. She shyly withdrew from his friendly hello and turned imploringly towards her brothers and sisters for deliverance. My fellow passengers and I endured the dos and don'ts preached to us by Tom the ambitiously named coach captain over the bus's loudspeakers. He introduced his fellow coach captain Colin shortly before detailing the intricacies of the toilet. I pondered on whether and how he associated the two in his mind. We heard about the black button and how we were to push it before AND after performing any duties that Mother Nature required of us. Addressing us like a stern teacher to his preschool charges, Tom said that he hoped we would oblige him by holding off visiting the toilet at all until the rest stops. In return, however, he had no intention of being so obliging towards anyone who smoked, drank, took illegal drugs or entered the off-duty driver's bunk. Offenders would be dumped on the roadside without trial or appeal. Oh, and one more thing: please shut the toilet door quietly, the off-duty driver is trying to sleep. Colin switched off the interior lights and put on a video. This was my first experience of McCafferty's-standard movies. Catering towards an imprisoned audience, the family features try to cater towards everybody and manage to please nobody. You can't escape them. Even if you are sitting at the rear of the darkened coach where you need binoculars to see the screen, you are subjected to the dialogue, which bellows out of the speaker directly above your head. Only the guy sitting beside me managed to tune out the crap and fall asleep. Lucky bastard. Giant Merino Sheep and Skippy the Ghost Dog. Only minutes from the highly-anticipated ending of the movie, we pulled into a roadside truckstop topped with a giant Merino sheep. Following a large greasy meal for the bus drivers (oops, I mean the "coach captains") and a dried up budget cup of potato wedges for myself, we hit the road again, this time with Colin at the wheel. The video ended, releasing us from our torture, so I had another go at sleeping. First I needed to arrange my pillow. After the traditional behind-the-head arrangement proved sufficiently uncomfortable, I experimented with it like a pregnant cocker spaniel circling in her basket. I eventually fell asleep with my head forward on the pillow in my lap and didn't wake up until 2:40am, when Colin's unwelcome voice droned over the loudspeaker that we were at rest stop number two. I lifted my head, pleasantly surprised that my neck still functioned and that I hadn't drooled at all. I have a theory that drooling only occurs during the day so that people can see and enjoy my embarrassment. If my salivary glands sense that nobody is watching, they won't even make the effort. My fellow passengers and I blearily made our way into the restaurant. I bought a bottomless cup of hot chocolate. Not that there wasn't a bottom in the cup, there certainly was, but I still managed to scald myself pouring it. I tried to read a book while Tom and Colin dived into their second free fry-up of the night. We climbed back onto the bus at 3:20am. Colin counted us, appeared to be happy with the result, and pulled out of the rest stop 10 minutes early. He didn't seem to mind that there were at least two people missing - a girl who had been sitting behind me and that older apologetic man a few seats in front. I discovered later that the girl was actually on board, it was just that she had manoeuvred herself into a sleeping position that was more on the floor than on the seat. I only spotted her because one of her legs was sticking out into the aisle. I hoped for her sake that Tom or Colin didn't spot her, or she would be walking the rest of the way to Melbourne. An extremity in the aisle was strictly against the rules of the bus. I don't know what happened to the old man. Maybe he liked the all-night restaurant and decided to stay. Perhaps he wanted to get his money's worth out of the bottomless hot chocolate. Perhaps he fell in love with the befuddled-looking old lady cleaning the restrooms. Creepy Cells, Tall Toilets, Paddy's Place Monday, July 6; Melbourne When I opened my eyes we were moving through the dark and near-deserted streets of Melbourne. I knew that it was Melbourne because Colin kindly woke us up and told us. I looked at my watch: six am. Well, I was in the right city, but when we pulled into what I presumed was the Melbourne Coach Terminal, I found out that it wasn't the Melbourne Coach Terminal at all, but Spencer Street Railway Station. Oops. As the night gave way to morning, I tumbled off the bus into the station and got my bearings. Leaving my backpack under the careful eye of a few elderly gents in the concourse, I went downstairs and entered the surreal blue world of the men's toilets. In an effort to discourage intravenous drug use, the toilets were illuminated by ultra-violet fluorescent lights. It allegedly makes veins more difficult to locate. In the murky blue glow, I pulled back my sleeve to investigate the theory. Last time I had given blood the nurse had enviously complimented me on the plump, easily-tapped vein just inside my elbow, so I examined my skin closely for its telltale mauve course. Camouflaged against my stonewashed blue arm, the vein was nowhere to be seen, in happy accordance with the authorities' objective. Still, I was just a casual vein-seeker; I couldn't vouch for how effective the blue-light policy was against experienced vein-hunting drug users, but I can testify that there weren't any junkies in the toilets when I was there. Having said that, it was six-something on a Monday morning; all decent, God-fearing junkies were probably tucked up in bed. I made my way to Toad Hall, the hostel where Denise and Keara were staying. I lingered in a café across the street until the respectable hour of 9am before I called on them. We planned out our day over breakfast. Denise and I had been cornered in the hostel kitchen by an elderly aproned man in a woolly hat who eagerly dished out unsolicited advice about what to see in Melbourne. Keara had a list of recommended places to visit in the city too, given to her by another Irish friend of ours, Eoin. Central to this list was Bridie O'Reilly's, an Irish bar that Eoin recommended more than once "for a good snog." As it was only 10am, we shelved his endorsement and went to the Old Melbourne Gaol instead. Denise browsing through the upper balcony cells of Melbourne Gaol. Built as a model prison for men and women during the mid-nineteenth century, Melbourne Gaol served as the home for many of Australia's captured outlaws during the country's wild youth, most of whom were awaiting trial or execution. Its less celebrated inmates comprised petty criminals on short-term sentences, debtors, and convicts sentenced to hard labour; (I was surprised to discover that hard labour for men included making corn sacks and mending clothes, as well as the more traditional stone-breaking. What was regular labour then? Baking cookies? Crocheting toilet-roll cosies?) Although state-of-the-art in its design, the prison was overcrowded for much of its lifetime, with two and three prisoners in tiny cells intended for one. Doctors of the time studied the skull contours of inmates in the belief that brain shape influenced personality. Ultimately, they hoped to be able to identify a dangerous felon before his crimes were committed, just by examining his head. Plaster death masks of former prisoners, moulded from their heads after execution, were on display in their cramped old cells. They certainly looked like a menacing bunch, although to be fair, as the noose tightened around his neck, an executee probably had more on his mind than whether or not to smile for next century's museum visitors. We got to see the cell of Ned Kelly, Australia's most infamous outlaw and ill-fated star of an early nineties Weetabix TV commercial, as well as his home-made suit of armour and the site of his hanging. Other suits of armour were on display too, as well as a distinctly unappealing flogging triangle. Keara and ghost of former inmate, Melbourne Gaol. Between 1842 and 1924 the gaol was the site of 135 hangings and now houses a permanent exhibition entitled "The Art of Hanging." Art? I don't think Emma Williams appreciated the artistic side of the job. The exhibition features a cheery description of her botched hanging in 1895, which notes how the hanging platform didn't drop properly and "only tore her neck." How disagreeable for poor Emma. It was no wonder that both Denise and Keara became a little spooked. I was a little lacking in enthusiasm myself after shutting myself into one of the cells on the upper level (just for a laugh, you understand); - they were cramped, damp, dark and eerie - even Ned Kelly said that he would rather go to the gallows than back to gaol. That suited the Victorian authorities just fine - they sent him to both. The visitor's book featured inspired gems of comments like "cold," "scary," and "good." I added "filled with the stench of evil" just for a bit of variation. We didn't hang around. Being a tourist is not a relaxing job, especially in an unfamiliar city, so we hopped onto a free tourist tram and did a half loop of the city circle to Rialto Tower, the tallest office building in the southern hemisphere. This is not to be confused with CentrePoint in Sydney, which claims the tallest observation deck in the southern hemisphere, or Sky Tower in Auckland, allegedly the tallest tower south of the equator. There are so many titles for tallest things - tallest free-standing structure, tallest self-supporting structure, tallest monument and so on, that it is difficult as a consumer to know which attractions warrant genuine attention and which ones can be shrugged off with a casual nod. Rialto Tower was nice and tall though, so we took the express elevator to the top (the alternative was 1450 steps) and "ooh"ed and "aah"ed at the views of Melbourne laid out beneath us. The open-air balconies were fully caged in to stop patrons with unsound limbs or minds from playing chicken with the pavement far beneath us. The cage's mesh was so fine that not even the most persevering visitor could toss anything larger than a small coin onto the unwitting pedestrians below. Reflecting on these party-pooping precautions along with the ultra-violet toilets I had seen earlier, I concluded that the authorities were determined to protect the people of Melbourne, both from themselves and from discourteous tourists like myself. I should rephrase that. I'd like to consider myself a backpacker or a traveller, not a tourist. Tourists go on package holidays and get driven in enormous buses from hotels to crowded attractions and back again. They are middle-aged or elderly, follow hassled-looking guides in large groups, and leaf through Fodor's guidebooks. They try to make up for not knowing the local language by speaking slowly and loudly in their own tongue when dealing with locals. Travellers, on the other hand, stay in hostels, have no money, and tote dog-eared Lonely Planets. They like to think that they are experiencing the real culture of their destination, getting down with the locals, having an adventure, and appreciating what they are seeing and learning far more than the shallow, tacky souvenir-collecting tourists. Like in most aspects of life however, image is everything. The difference in attitude between a tourist and a traveller is often very subtle, sometimes non-existent, but that doesn't stop me (and I'm not alone) from distinctly considering myself as the latter for the benefit of my own self-image. To perceive myself as a traveller rather than a tourist, I accentuate the differences, ignore the similarities, and imagine that I am straying from the beaten track. The Australian outback is wonderful for this purpose. Due to the enormous area of the country and the vast distances between settlements, you can be easily lured into the sense of pioneering adventure. In reality, the beaten track is always under your feet, it is just so long and so wide that sometimes you cannot see the hordes around you. In the Rialto tower, we were all tourists. It was about as "beaten track" as we could get. Not much adventure there, but it could have been worse - at least we didn't buy any key rings. Keara appreciating art on Melbourne's Southbank. We crossed the Yarra river and sat in the weak sunshine on the concourse outside Melbourne's casino, watching children playing in a dancing fountain. They ran across the plaza of time-delayed jets, gambling with the apparent random eruptions of the fountain. Some kids made it across dry and goaded their peers. Their peers generally weren't so lucky and got drenched. This made us and the small crowd who had gathered around to watch very happy. We chortled and sniggered gleefully at the wet and misfortunate children until complete soakings became commonplace. After we had seen our quota of suffering, we ate lunch in the Casino food court and strolled down Southbank towards the Victorian Arts Centre. En route we stopped to see a sculpture of stacked toilet bowls. It was a little less bizarre looking than it sounds, but still worth a decent touristy stare. On reaching the Arts Centre, we came across another sculpture, this time a bronze and apparently abstract work. My initial impression was that it looked like a tipsy and rather overweight cow sitting up on its hind legs. Neither Keara nor Denise saw the cow. Pretty soon I couldn't see the cow anymore either. I was inconsolable. Keara suggested we go to the beach at St. Kilda, so we caught a tram in that direction. I supplied the entertainment for the journey by repeatedly falling asleep and then jerking awake when my head fell forward onto my chest. I may have drooled, but if I did I wouldn't admit it. The tram driver silently announced St. Kilda by stepping out onto the track and lighting a cigarette. We got off and looked around. There wasn't much to see. The surrounding streets, although lined with shops and cafes, were quiet and nearly empty. The place looked as if it was longing for hot summer weekends, balloons, laughing (or screaming) children, ice cream and family picnics. It seemed ashamed of its cheapened self on this dull winter weekday and the depressed atmosphere seemed to settle on the three of us as soon as we arrived. A mostly deserted amusement park lay between us and the beach, radiating creaks and rattles as lone roller coaster cars with silent, unfazed passengers trundled and wheeled around the wooden circuit. We walked dutifully to the beach and to the end of a short pier as the sun was going down. Then we walked back. It was decidedly unremarkable. Even a cup of coffee and an overpriced brownie didn't help our collective mood. We caught a tram back into Melbourne centre. Denise and I were planning to spend a few days in Melbourne with my uncle Paddy. One of my mother's older brothers, Paddy has spent most of his professional life in Australia and is now retired, living alone just outside the centre of Melbourne. I had not seen him for years but he knew that we were coming. I called him from the girl's hostel. "Thought it might be you," he answered, "Are you lost?" My sister Michelle, who had visited Paddy the previous year, had been unable to find his apartment. I explained that I hadn't even begun to get lost yet, and hoped that he would arm me with enough directions so that I wouldn't have to. He instructed me to get off the number 19 tram at Walker St near the stop for the zoo. The three of us (Keara came along to say hello) boarded a number 19 tram. I asked the driver how far it was too the zoo stop. He explained unapologetically that we were on the wrong tram and that we should get another one, unless it was Sunday. A little anxious, but still confident in my uncle's directions, I asked him if he could announce when we crossed Walker St. He claimed never to have heard of Walker St. I asked him if this tram followed Royal Parade. At least he knew that, but when I asked him again if this tram crossed Walker St., he shrugged, "Maybe. I don't know." It is no wonder that Melbourne residents were mourning the recent replacement of tram conductors by automated ticket machines. We found Walker Street by peering out of the tram window through the darkness at street numbers. We got out at the turn-off for the zoo and found Paddy's apartment complex. As he had predicted, we circled the complex three times before we found his poorly-marked unit. We sank into Paddy's couches and chatted amiably for quite a while, but presently Keara rose to leave. Denise and I walked her to the tram and said goodbye, wishing her well on the remainder of her solitary travels, for she was leaving Melbourne the following morning. Denise and I took the opportunity to go and get something to eat, as Paddy's apartment contained no food for junk-eating, sauce-loving non-diabetics. Paddy kindly dropped us off a few blocks away on Lyford St, where we ordered chicken kebabs in a neon kebab shop. Denise eyed her purchase suspiciously, claiming her chicken pieces were grisly and dodgy-looking. By the time her kebab had been filtered through the Denise quality control system (accompanied by much nose upturning) all of the chicken was in a tidy pile at the designated disposal end of her paper plate. I decided not to look too carefully at the contents of my kebab, and found it delicious. We went into a university bar after our/my meal and had a couple of local bitters. The previous night's bus trip was catching up on me and I almost fell asleep while Denise was talking to/at me. I was trying to stay awake but I could feel myself slipping away. My eyes fell out of focus and it took all of my concentration to sharpen my vision again. As soon as I stopped concentrating, I would find my eyelids drooping again. This happened several times, with me taking longer to snap out of it on each occasion. Maybe there WAS something wrong with that chicken kebab. At length I completely lost track of what Denise was talking about. Unfortunately she noticed my glazed eyes and reproached me for my drooped head and poor conversation. I was terrified that she was going to ask me to repeat what she had been saying. I was too drowsy to deal with the grief. Thankfully I wasn't challenged - we just finished our drinks and went home. Market Meandering, Penguin Perving Tuesday, July 7; Melbourne Paddy's kitchen yielded 3 Vita-Brits for breakfast. I avoided his nasty UHT milk and his accompanying taunts about healthy eating. I avoided his toast and Vegemite too. I had bought a jar of the yeast-based Vegemite spread while living in Sydney, confident that such a popular national food item couldn't be bad. I was wrong, horribly wrong. The full jar of Vegemite still collects dust in a Bondi kitchen cupboard as evidence of this. It was market day at Victoria Market in the city, so Denise and I caught a tram in to take a look. Tomatoes For Sale at Victoria Markets. We entered the markets via the butcher's section, where several butchers-come-salesmen were listing the virtues of their sausages over the sausages of their neighbours. I recognised the familiar shape of rashers on a sliced pig carcass and almost stumbled into a bin of pig heads. I don't usually see meat in anything other than styrofoam and cellophane in the supermarket freezer, a trend with which I am quite happy, so I moved quickly into the fruit and vegetables market and beyond. Browsing through sunglasses in Victoria Market. Denise and I wandered among stalls of apples and carrots, wardrobes of clothes, dangling collections of belt buckles, shelves of painted crockery, racks of sunglasses, cages of songbirds and lots more stuff that we weren't the least bit interested in buying. Denise did buy me a Chupa Chup, choco-banana flavour. She got herself a choco-banana too. I eat the choco, she eats the banana; we'd put nursery rhyme celebrities Jack Sprat (who would eat no fat) and his wife (who would eat no lean) to shame. One of our resolutions while travelling (and even when not travelling) was to avoid dining in the ubiquitous McDonalds that litter Australia. This is more difficult to do when travelling than when living in one place, as the familiar menu and environment presents an easy option in a strange town or city. The food shovelled out is nasty, but when you are weary and hungry, or rushing, MickeyD's is tempting. Thankfully we were neither weary, exceptionally hungry nor rushing, so we continued past the golden arches outside the markets and made our way to Melbourne Central Shopping Centre instead. No pig's heads there, although the equivalent attraction is a large clock that plays "Waltzing Matilda' on the hour. We ate lunch in a crowded food court and took the tram back to Paddy's apartment. He had kindly offered to take us to Phillip Island, located a few hours drive south-east of Melbourne, and famous for its Fairy Penguins. The tiny penguins spend all day in the sea but come back to their nests on land after dusk, comically waddling across the beach in disorganised groups to the delight of gasping and squealing spectators. We intended to gasp and squeal with the rest of them that evening. After a wrong turn on the way out of Melbourne, we backtracked a little and cruised through the countryside. Paddy told us about some of his extensive and interesting experiences working as an engineer in both England and Australia, occasionally breaking off to complain about the price of petrol. He told me engrossing stories about my family's history that I hadn't heard before. Apparently, a maternal ancestor of mine had spent time in jail following a conviction for bank robbery, and although he was later cleared and released, his family never believed in his innocence and he was eventually shamed into exile. Another relative of mine had been a jockey and allegedly threw the English Grand National on purpose. Yet another family member had been a judge during the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals following World War II. Interesting characters indeed, and Paddy lamented the lack of controversy or significant achievement in my generation to date. He seemed disappointed that none of my immediate family or my cousins were famous or notorious. From the way he was talking, I think he would have preferred that we were notorious rather that just plain famous. A little bit of scandal to keep his life interesting. When we stopped to get overpriced petrol he lamented some more. Even after ten years of retirement, he still noted the odometer reading and amount of petrol purchased, as if he could claim it back as an expense at the end of the month. The marked-up receipt joined legions of its peers under the dashboard, never again to see the light of day. Once we crossed the bridge onto Phillip Island, we drove towards Cowes and then took the turn for Penguin Parade. Paddy, Phillip Island. We had plenty of time until dusk, so we continued on towards a headland overlooking Seal Rocks, on which stands a visitor's centre dedicated to interpreting the aforementioned seals, and an underwater viewing platform for gawping at them. We didn't have enough time to go in, so after a brief wander along the blustery bluff, we backtracked a few miles to the Penguin Parade visitor's centre. A sign out front recommended different degrees of clothing for penguin watching during different seasons. Today the arrow was pointing at the extreme rightmost figure wearing a coat, scarf, hat and rain gear. Not very encouraging, but if the cute little penguins could handle it, then so could I. After coffee and plenty of touching of touch-screen exhibits, we headed down the elevated wooden walkway towards the beach. Floodlights overlooked concrete viewing stands surrounding a ranger's booth, which in turn overlooked the beach. If it wasn't so cold, the place would have been a perfect venue for a beach volleyball competition. The stands were separated, with routes for the penguins to clear the beach and reach the undergrowth between them. We spotted a good vantage point near the front of the stand, and made our way down the steps. Dusk, Phillip Island. I prepared my camera and loaded some high-speed film. Flash photography was prohibited and enforced by the rangers. We waited and watched the pounding surf and the darkening sky. Many more people arrived and filled the rows behind us. My arse was getting cold from sitting on the concrete step, but I was encouraged by the ranger's announcement that the penguins were expected in about 15 minutes. The sodium floodlights slowly came to life and more red-coated rangers arrived to control the crowd, making sure that there wouldn't be a beach invasion by well-meaning penguin lovers when the little dears emerged from the water. 15 minutes passed. Then 15 minutes more. Like pop icons or pubescent party-goers, the penguins had plotted a fashionably late entrance. My arse had become really cold by this stage, and it had grown so dark that a decent photograph of the penguins was impossible. Nobody told that to the middle-aged Japanese guy sitting next to me on the step who was eagerly tinkering with his expensive-looking camera and tripod. The happy hum of conversation had disappeared. People began to see penguins in the surf that weren't really there. My arse had become numb. Two hundred pairs of eyes were trained on the shoreline, willing penguins to arrive before piles did. But wait, I saw one! His head poked out of the spreading surf momentarily before he was washed back out as the wave retreated. He was quite small, no more than a foot tall, with a white belly and black back and tail. The penguins were supposed to be gathering in groups known as "rafts", in the deeper water just beyond the breaking waves. The mode of thought behind this assembly is that if they run across the beach in a large group or raft, they each have a smaller individual chance of being caught by a waiting predator. A raft of the little mites appeared in front of the other viewing platform. There were plenty of "Ooh"s and "Aah"s from those around me but the truth is that the penguins were too far away to see properly. After a few minutes, another raft formed in front of the ranger's tower, and then another group emerged from the surf in front of us. There must have been 40 fairy penguins on the beach by this time, being toppled and washed in and out on the advancing and receding waves. They were indecisive little buggers, and even more unorganised than some of the meetings I had attended while working for a bank in Sydney, and that's saying something. Any advantage that the penguins had gained by forming into groups was lost over the time they spent hanging around getting their heads together and deciding on a direction. Eventually they struck out across the sand like it was D-Day and they were storming the Normandy beaches. A raft of Fairy Penguins (honestly!) scurries scross the beach onto Phillip Island, watched from a distance by a park ranger. They waddled clumsily but hurriedly across the sand, breaking what little formation they had achieved. More "Ooh"s and "Aah"s, and plenty of snapping camera shutters. One young girl forgot to disable her camera's automatic flash and was chastened by the newly converted ecotourists around her. A few people were unable to locate the source of the flash and gave general dirty looks to everybody around them. We continued to watch the penguins after they cleared the beach and hit the undergrowth. Separating, they searched for their burrows amongst the low bushes of the dunes, unperturbed by dozens of people watching them from an elevated walkway. They appeared completely lost and seemed to be meandering aimlessly, but more and more penguins ambled into the darkness beyond the floodlights and disappeared, with only the occasional chirp providing any clue of their subsequent location. As we slowly made our way back up to the visitor's centre we passed a few fairy penguins still wandering about distractedly. The last fellow I saw before going inside was curiously but intently examining a manhole cover. Had he forgotten his key? Back in the visitor's centre, my cold extremities gave thanks and begin to function again. We looked around the exhibits some more and loaded up with fairy penguin trivia. A modified weighing scales advised me that if I were a fairy penguin, I would have to eat 1774 pilchards per day to stay healthy. Another statistic stated that half of all fairy penguins die in their first year of life. After a moment's thought, I decided that I preferred the latter statistic - I'd rather die than have to eat 1774 pilchards every day. We made sure to thoroughly check underneath the car for mechanically inquisitive penguins before leaving the centre. Paddy nominated me to drive back to Melbourne, re-assigning himself as chief back seat driver for the trip. It was a bittersweet promotion. Back in Melbourne, he turned down the invitation to join us for dinner; Denise and I dined on pizza and beer at the Blue Train restaurant in Southgate and I sang the extensive culinary praises of that heavenly matched food and drink combo. Afterwards I tugged a lethargic Denise through the Crown Casino to denounce the overdone décor. Even though it was midweek, there were hosts of gamblers gambling. Young and old, men and women, none of whom looked like they had ever been made happy by a win or could ever handle a loss. One glance at the glazed pairs of eyes captured by the slots or the dealer's draw was enough to transform our curiosity to aversion; we moved quickly across the casino floor to escape the tasteless enterprise of twisted economics. The brisk night air and rattling tram home provided a welcome dose of reality. NEXT | HOME | CONTENTS | ABOUT | SEND EMAIL