Melbourne

New Zealand and Australia were definitely part of my Bucket List, and This is True readers were a big part of making Melbourne special.

Tip as you read: in Australia, Melbourne is pronounced “Melbin.”

For operational reasons we had to miss Bluff, a port in New Zealand, which sucked for me because we were going to see a friend there — Jacob is one of the guys from my First Responder team who left Colorado a year or so after we did. (He is part of the “brain drain” I wrote about in my blog last year: I was thinking specifically about him as I wrote that entry, which may surprise him as he reads this.) He is also a several-year Premium subscriber.

Jacob then suggested he fly over to meet us in Melbourne, as we’re now spending several weeks in Australia, and besides, he wanted to drive out and see something in particular near Melbourne.

Saturday: Healesville Sanctuary

Saturday we were scheduled to meet with longtime readers Stewart and Natalie, who suggested a visit to the Healesville Sanctuary, one of the properties of Zoos Victoria, which has a lot of examples of native animals. It’s about an hour’s drive from where we docked.

We asked Stewart and Nat, who will make an appearance in an upcoming blog post, if it was OK to bring Jacob along. “Absolutely,” Stewart replied within seconds. “Any friend of yours must be [warm smiley face].”

Their suggestion was perfect: I saw my first live kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, and more. One of our favorite parts was an open air arena where we were introduced to quite a few of their rehabilitated birds, including a gorgeous Australian boobook owl that flew by my head, just inches away, and I felt the whoosh of air from its wings even though I was wearing a hat.

I used cGPT to identify the owl species from this photo since I was trying to absorb the experience, not take notes. Once that was accomplished I told it “I’m writing about it because it flew by my head, within inches. That alone was worth the cost of admission. A spectacular memory.”

Its response surprised me, as it went on for several paragraphs in response to that rather minor “prompt” — it takes a turn to “talk” at every opportunity, taking its cue from humans, I guess!

“That tracks,” Chatty-G said. “When an owl passes that close, you suddenly understand just how different they are from other birds. What makes that moment so striking isn’t just proximity, it’s that your brain expects something to make noise, and nothing does.”

Odd phrasing, but OK…. It continued:

“Owls, especially species like the Southern Boobook, are engineered to break that expectation: Serrated leading edge of the wing splits airflow into tiny streams instead of one noisy turbulence front; Velvety upper surface dampens sound rather than reflecting it; Fringed trailing edge diffuses the remaining turbulence into near silence.

“Put together, the usual ‘whoosh’ of a bird passing close simply… isn’t there. That mismatch between expectation and reality is what makes it stick. It’s not just a good wildlife moment, it’s one of those rare sensory experiences that recalibrates your intuition a bit. Once you’ve had it happen that close, every other bird suddenly sounds… clumsy.”

Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far myself, especially considering the audio file that’s below, but it’s a spectacular memory for sure.

Sunday: Great Ocean Road

On Sunday, Stewart and Nat had plans, so Jacob rented a car and drove us up the coast to see that “something in particular” I mentioned above:  the Great Ocean Road along the southeast coast of Victoria. We couldn’t drive it all and get Jacob back to the airport in time, but it was a gorgeous trip that reminded me of my old stomping grounds, California’s North Coast: winding roads through thick forests, except here the trees were eucalyptus (yummy koala food) rather than redwoods.

The highlight of the trip was Aireys Inlet, a small (population 1,000ish) town with “the best bakery in Australia,” which boast could well be true. We couldn’t help but order several of its French pastries, plus coffees to go, which we took to the lighthouse on the edge of a cliff above town to devour.

Kit had a Portuguese tart (one of her faves) and a Cruffin; I had a Chocolatine (not pictured, but essentially a squarish chocolate-filled croissant) and a Kouign Amann. Jacob had a meat pie and maybe something else.

Tipping is not expected in Australia because they pay service workers proper wages, but there was something added that I’ve seen often in Australia: a 10% surcharge for being open on Sunday. (Some include surcharges all weekend, and/or declared holidays.)

Another thing that’s common: a surcharge if you use a credit card to pay, usually 1–1.5%.

The view from the lighthouse (without even paying the $12.50 to climb up to the top) was spectacular:

Hitchcock’s Delight

We then hit the road again, stopping in one place for a canyon hike to a waterfall, which I didn’t attempt thanks to a flareup of a knee problem, thanks to many years of emergency service work. So I waited at the bottom of the stairs in the canyon to absorb the atmosphere.

What I noticed: a massive variety of unseen birds calling, with a background of the surf from hundreds of meters away. The resulting phone recording isn’t spectacular, but you’ll get the idea:

At the Healesville Sanctuary we had run into a few of what we all affectionately call “ship people,” so when Jacob and Kit got back I asked her, “Did you see any ship people up there?” Nope! We were far enough afield that we never did on this trip.

Jacob dropped us off near the ship and headed to the airport, and the ship threw off the lines and headed off to sea, to lazily make our way to our next stop while I finished writing my stories for the next issue of This is True. Plus, of course, this entry for you!

The takeaway: you don’t actually have to stay right close to the ship when it comes into port. While you might not have a “reader in every port,” and I don’t have time to meet everyone even if I do, it really can add a cool dimension to our travel.

OK, now it’s your turn to talk! As in, Comments are open below.