Ashley's in Asia: The Wonderful Penguins of Oz

"Oh we're off to see the penguins, the wonderful penguins of Oz...."

Who saw wild penguins? I did!

At dusk, thousands of little midnight-blue penguins came popping up out of the water in little groups. Waddle, waddle, waddle...plop.

Phillip Island, about 2 hours from Melbourne, is the home of the smallest species of the 28 species of penguins. Every night, after swimming around and eating all day, they come waddling into shore at dusk and burrow into holes in the ground to sleep.

In September, like a high school prom, they waddle out of the water awkwardly, wondering if they're going to find that special someone, groom themselves carefully, fight each other by slapping each other with their little flippers, and then pair up and make cooing sounds in the tall grass before they retire for the evening into their holes.

I learned all of these things firsthand when I went to Phillip Island last weekend while I was in Melbourne. I also went to a koala preserve where they have boardwalks through the eucalyptus trees so that you can get right up close to them in their natural habitat - and boy do you get close! I love that in Australia you can just drive a few miles from the city and go see koalas and penguins in the wild!

I spent my Friday night watching Footie with a bloke from the office and his mates while eating pizza and drinking Cooper's :) I was told by one bloke that I speak with a 'twang.'

I am now an expert in Aussie Football. Here are the most important things to note about Aussie Rules Football:

Aussie rules are a combination of rules from every sport. You can drop kick the ball like soccer, hit the ball like serving a volleyball, you have to dribble the ball every so often like basketball because traveling is against the rules, and you have to get it between the posts like soccer, and the guys beat each other up like rugby. I'm still trying to find the rule from cricket, but I'm sure that there is one. Also, the field is shaped like a football - how awesome is that? Oh, and the players wear really short shorts. The game is really fast-paced like soccer and basketball, a definite step up from boring American football.

I then retired to my hotel from the Shining (see picture below for proof) where I was awakened in the middle of the night to a child screaming in the hallway (or a ghost child, didn't feel like finding out..).

On Saturday I went to Phillip Island with a friend who came down from Sydney, and we had very dramatic weather - excellent for picture-taking and penguins. On Sunday, we went to the Great Ocean Road and found a town that had an entire shopping center devoted to surfing- Every single store in the mall was a surf shop! And yet, once again, I love Australia because even in the surfing town, there were cafes everywhere serving yummy food and fancy coffee drinks, to enjoy while you watch people in wetsuits pass.

Now I'm back in Sydney and I only have one more week! I can't believe it! How has the time passed this quickly? I demand a recount!

I went on a harbour cruise with my office-mates last night around Sydney Harbour. The boat showed up half an hour late - just enough time for everyone to have moved to the bar by the wharf to get the party started.

We hired some salsa dancers to do a demonstration and it turned out that our boat had absolutely zero space for dancing and they ended up dancing around the seating area in las vagas-style feather hat-things and frilly teeny-weeny bikinis. But, this really just made the whole thing more interesting (this plus the free-flowing alcohol available at all Australian parties).

I managed to sneak away before a group headed out for a late-night pub crawl after the boat returned to the King Street wharf by the office. Alas, I could have had some even better stories, but then I'd be too tired and hungover to write them down ;)