This morning Jen and I awoke to a thunderstorm and pouring rain - and once again, I'd like to point out that that's NOT what the weather forecast had called for! (I'm gonna continue ranting about Melbourne weather for quite some time at this rate). So we decided that today would be a good day to finally go to the Melbourne Aquarium.It was an interesting day. This aquarium is not as big or as flashy as the one in Sydney, but they have some unique displays that I really liked. For example, leafy sea dragons are only found along the southern coasts of Australia - and so the Melbourne Aquarium has a big tank full of them. Not surprisingly, I love leafy sea dragons. :-) Taking pictures of them, however, turned out to be a bit problematic. I tried all sorts of different camera settings today and it still seems to me that getting a good photo in an aquarium is more a matter of luck than anything. Like this pic of a green sea turtle - I'm so impressed with how it turned out!
On the second floor, they have a rock pool full of young stingrays, skates, and sharks. It was one of those shallow displays where you look down on the fish from the top. Jen and I spent quite a bit of time here because the animals were VERY friendly and kept coming right up to the surface, as if they were trying to say hello! Turns out that it was almost feeding time and it was likely that the fish thought we had food. I swear some of them tried to climb right out of the water! I was especially intrigued by the elephant-nosed sharks, which were sure strange-looking!
The big display at this aquarium is called the Oceanarium, and it contains the city's biggest fishbowl - literally! In this case, we (the humans) enter the fishbowl via one of those plexiglass tunnels that allow the fish to swim over your heads. Then you end up in a huge chamber where the fish, sharks and rays are swimming all around you. It was pretty cool! Our timing was perfect - they were just about to start a feeding show in the fish bowl when we got there. So we stood in the back (wisely leaving the hordes of screaming little kids to have the front seats; kudos to all parents who take toddlers to cool places like aquariums!) and watched the divers do their thing. We were lucky - the big grey nurse sharks and seven-gilled sharks were feeling hungry today (apparently they only really eat twice a week), so we got to watch how they feed. The sharks can shoot their teeth out about 15cm from their lips! The divers fed them by putting chunks of bait fish on poles and offering that to the sharks. Pretty cool.
At the end of the Oceanarium, there's a theatre-style space with a huge window, where you can sit and watch the fish go by. But here you could also see the plexiglass tunnel that people were walking through to exit the fishbowl. So I sent Jen back down the tunnel and I took a cool shot of her from the other side. Due to the curvature and thickness of the plexiglass, it's not the best shot in the world, but it's still pretty neat! You can check it out in my latest facebook album on the Melbourne Aquarium.
We left the aquarium around 1pm, and exited into a bright, sunny, HOT day - totally opposite to the cool and rainy morning! (Again - stupid Melbourne weather!) So since we had nothing better to do, we decided to go to the beach after all, kinda to make up for yesterday's thwarted plans. We caught the train to Brighton Beach (where I was last Thursday) and did some exploring. We found these really cool beach huts in a zillion different colours, all lined up at the edge of the sand (check 'em out in my "Melbourne - Part Two" album). We ate icey-pulls (freezies, but made with real fruit juice instead of just sugar and flavouring) and walked along the sand. It was great.
Now, since we hadn't originally planned on going to the beach today, we didn't have our sunscreen or hats with us. And even though we were only out in the sun for about an hour, let me tell you, we were sure feeling it by the end. I can't believe how strong the sun is here - and we're only still in spring! We didn't burn or anything, but we did come home feeling tired and drained - moreso than we felt coming home last weekend from the Chiltern camp, where we'd spent the entire weekend out in the sun, but with hats and sunscreen being religiously applied. It was a good reminder for us that we need to always have our hats and sunscreen with us here. I'll remember 'em for next time, that's for sure!
