Gene and Nancy Visit Oz

On March 8, Gene and Nancy emerged blinking and disoriented from the Customs Hall at Tullamarine International Airport in Melbourne after a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles and were immediately asked by Bill and Alma, “What’s wrong?”

Oh well, they survived the trip with admirable determination to see something of this marvelous continent-state they’d heard about, and before long they set off with us on two roadtrips.

First we drove to northeastern Victoria following the footsteps of Ned Kelly, Australia’s folk hero and notorious bushranger (bandit), who in the mid-1800s was either an admirable Robin Hood-type rascal or a psychopathic murderer, depending on your viewpoint. The highlight of our efforts to retrace the unhappy trail of this somewhat incompetent bank robber was an unbelievably corny “museum” at Glenrowen, where Kelly was gunned down by the cops despite his heavy iron body armor. Nancy patiently watched the ridiculous mechanical figures act out the Ned Kelly saga, including one drunken saloon patron peeing in a spittoon. Oh well, such is life, as Ned remarked shortly before meeting his maker at the end of a rope at the Old Melbourne Goal.

Then we were off to a string of vineyards for winetasting, a visit to a cheese factory in the remote bush country, dinner at Beechworth’s well-known gourmet restaurant, The Bank, and a visit to a wildlife preserve at Healesville, near where we dined at the elegant and top-rate vineyard restaurant at the Chateau Yering Vineyard.

The next day we returned to Melbourne for a wonderful dinner of roast pigeon and other gourmet delights at Lisa and Jacob’s house before setting off the next day on another road trip, this time to Mornington Peninsula for more wine tasting and a look at the famous Penguin Parade on Phillip Island, in which fairy penguins march en masse out of the water at nightfall after hunting in the sea all day. They then waddle to their sand burrows to fed their young. Very cute.

After overnighting in Cowes and taking the ferry across Phillip Bay, we drove along the spectacular Great Ocean Road to Lorne, stayed over night at our favorite accommodation, the 1880s Waverly House, and continued along the Big Sur-like coast some more before heading home.

After some more touristing here, Gene and Nancy flew off on their own to Sydney for a few days, and then flew down to Adelaide to celebrate their wedding anniversary and visit—yes, what else?—more wineries and great gourmet restaurants.

Here are some pictures of the first couple weeks of their trip: