Talking and Comedy

On Friday 30th, after a sunny day off work, my friend Jes and I went to see our last event of the Hello Darkness mini-festival, a talk and slideshow by Ken Warner about his photographs of Halloween from San Francisco.

I hadn’t heard of him before, but a quick search online found some photographs of high interest and good quality. He visited or lived in San Fransisco for twenty-odd years, and photographed the Halloween street parties which were based around the gay community there. He discussed how the parties came about, what people thought about it and some of the experiences he had while there. He showed us colour photos, as he had published a book of black and white photos and felt that the colour photos were something new.

There were some very interesting images involving people with costumes that were certainly worthy of some analysis. The highlight I think was the man who, apparently year after year, wore a costume consisting of pads and tampons with blood-red paint (at least I hope it was paint).

The room it took place in was on Brunswick Street, in an upstairs open-plan place. It seemed like the ideal place for a party, and although we headed off early, it seemed that a party would go on into the night. I even managed to sit on the hard wooden floor for the few hours it lasted. The crowd was an interesting mix of friends of friends of people who organised it, artistic types who were interested in the photos and quirky gothic types who just wanted to go to everything Halloween themed. I’m not sure where I fit in, but I was wearing plastic mini jack-o-lantern earrings.

The longer weekend was fairly quiet and lazy. Saturday afternoon consisted of an impromptu pub crawl and the evening a delicious dinner at the old Dainty Sechuan in Chinatown. Sunday was again, lazy, and involved watching
Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders’. We’d seen the first earlier this year, and this was significantly worse, but still amusing and lightly entertaining.

Unfortunately I had to work Monday, breaking up what could have been a five-day weekend. However, Cup eve evening was spent eating good food, drinking good beer and watching good comedy. We had dinner at Red Pepper at the top end of Bourke Street, a tried and tested Indian eatery. At only $6 for a veggie curry, and slightly less for an alcoholic beverage, it’s a great bargain.

Next up we headed over to Spleen, where there is free comedy on Monday nights. Although I’ve had the intention of going many times, this was the first time I actually managed to attend. Adam Rozenbachs was acting as MC and there was a huge set of other small-name comedians. Adam used a lot of the material he had at the comedy festival and when I saw him at the Comedy Club, but had added some new bits and delivered the old stuff in different ways.

Otherwise, Sammy J was fantastic, Felicity Ward was great and Troy Kinne was fairly good too. They were the highlights, but the others weren’t all bad. I think I’ll have to make an effort to go again, but not when it’s too warm – the air-con wasn’t very good!

Melbourne Cup Day was an enjoyable public holiday, and to avoid the racing rabble we headed to the cinema. We saw ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’, which I suppose is also called the movie that Heath Ledger was making when he died.

Overall, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing, and Heath Ledger didn’t get much of an opportunity to show how great he was, but it was an enjoyable movie and done well, particularly when you take into account what happened. I understand that they had to re-write chunks of it to enable three other actors to fill in (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell). I can’t say in comparison to how it was before, but the re-write definitely worked and the other three actors stepped up to the mark and did fantastically. Tom Waits also deserves a mention; I think I’m becoming a fan of his.

Otherwise, the movie is a long one, but doesn’t seem it. The story is interesting, if a little confusing. The special effects are beautiful and the costumes are especially impressive.

After that, it was all downhill and back to work today.

Hello Darkness

A friend had pointed this film festival out to me, a special horror movie run just before Halloween. It was to be shown at ACMI, which has become a frequent haunt of mine, with their ‘Freaky Friday’ features. With an interest in most of the movies showing at this festival, we bought one of the four movie passes and picked the following:

Paranormal Activity
There has apparently been a significant amount of hype around for this movie, but I hadn’t heard too much about it other than a website petition for the movie to be shown in certain towns (a rather successful marketing trick). This showing was sold out, but I had low expectations – a hand-held self-filmed movie? I couldn’t help but think of the Blair Witch Project. Thankfully this turned out much better. It seemed to last for a long time, but only because it was so tense all the way through. Despite this the characters created some natural comedy, but not enough to override the tension, particularly later on. I found myself sucked into the story and about half way through I had to remind myself that it was only a movie and it wasn’t real.

I won’t give too much away, but the story was great, if lacking in detail in places and the action was simple and spectacular. The ending I saw (one of three according to most websites) was good, but I felt added too much comedy to it rather than fear. The other two endings that I have heard about sound better, but whether they were executed well is another matter.

The Last House on the Left
This was the recent remake of the original from the 1970s, and I saw it only half an hour after ‘Paranormal Activity’, so obviously my expectations were fairly high. As it was fairly different, it wasn’t hard to expect different, and there was definitely a comedic gore factor to it, as well as some social and moral issues lightly tossed in.

As I haven’t seen the original, I can’t say how it compares, but I can say that it was a good movie. The acting was fairly good (especially the ‘bad guys’), and the special effects of blood and guts was fairly realistic for the most part. It was a scary movie in a different way, because there wasn’t too much tension building (and what there was was short-lived). The fear came in the believing that people could act that way, and that revenge could be that easy.

As I said, I wasn’t scared by this one, but it was still a good horror movie.

Sheitan
The first of two foreign language movies, I was quite looking forward to this one. I’ve seen some French movies, and quite enjoy their quirkiness, but was unsure whether that would continue into the horror-style movies. It certainly did. This movie definitely did not disappoint – there was tension, violence, sex and generally strange things. It was fantastic.

I feel the camera work is also worth a mention, with different techniques being applied to bring out the different moods throughout the movie. This was a strong point for me.

Overall there was a certain element of humour throughout this movie, right until the end, and it helped to confuse the audience. The moments of humour would come at unexpected points, or be so closely linked to the fear that it gave a very uneasy feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Haute Tension
The last movie of my four, and another French one. A quick look at IMDB indicated that this would be different to the oddness of ‘Sheitan’ and a more traditional horror slasher gore-fest; it certainly didn’t let down on the last count!

The story was a little predictable, with an inkling of the ending in the back of my mind. However, the execution was fairly good, with the build up, the action and a prolonged conclusion all being of high quality. The acting was hit and miss at times, but the soundtrack, camera work and blood made up for this for the most part. The plot was also missing in parts, but I still thought it worked.

Probably the weakest of the four I saw, but going by the high quality, it was definitely not a bad movie.

After re-reading this, I feel that I’m being faithful to my ‘resolution’ of sorts to watch more movies!

Phillip Island

My housemate and I decided to take a last minute weekend trip down to Phillip Island. We left just after 7am Saturday morning and headed down the Princes Hwy. We made good time, arriving at Grantville by around 9.30am. I’d read about the mini-golf at Maru Koala Park, and being the mature 20-somethings that we are, we just had to stop for a game.

We were the first customers of the day and after a quick coffee we headed out to the extensive pirate-themed course. It was quite an impressive set up, with a large boat (that you’re not allowed on) and several other decorated buildings and themed music. The golf itself was quite disappointing, being fairly easy (not that we were trying too hard). I’m fairly sure we missed a hole at one stage, and at the end, the ball disappears into a Aussie-outback-themed hut. As I only hit mine in, we headed back in with the other and I was getting ready to apologise for losing a ball when they informed me that that’s where they’re meant to end up. Very confusing. We skipped the koala park part and kept moving down to San Remo.

By the time we got to San Remo, we needed some more air, so went for a nice walk down the beach away from the crowds.

Eventually we headed back to the car and we decided to head across to Phillip Island. Within just a couple of kilometres, we saw a sign for a farmers market on Churchill Island, so decided to take a detour there and to the visitor’s centre. Thankfully we managed to pick up a map of the island and were given advice about some beaches to visit and about the Penguin Parade, which we decided we might as well see while we were there.

By the time we looked at the farmers market, it was approaching the time we had indicated to the B&B we would arrive. The place was called Otira, and was easily found by their instructions. We were met on arrival by an old dog (Dougal), followed by Robyn, the owner of the B&B.

Check in, such as it was, was no problem, and the room was beautifully presented in the main house. As noted on their website, we had afternoon tea on arrival (although it was even lunch time) with a delicious homemade carrot cake. Robyn’s husband John came out and told us all about the farm, how it used to be (he’s lived there all his life), how it is now, and offered to take us out to feed the 2 1/2 month old lambs.

Clutching warm milk in old Corona bottles with a rubber teat, we headed out with John to a small paddock. The lambs devoured the milk and headed off for a nap, while John took us down to the shearing shed and show us Dougal at work as a sheep dog. It was great to see a small herd of very fuzzy sheep (the shearing was happening when his sons arrived the next day) and an old dog doing what he loved.

As Robyn had suggested a beach at the end of Ventnor Beach Road, we decided we had nothing to lose in heading down and taking a look. We found an almost empty sandy beach with small areas with rock pools – it was fantastic. We took a lazy walk down to a point and then headed back again to go and get some lunch. We headed into Cowes and tried to find somewhere that wasn’t taken over by tourists – unfortunately that meant eating Burger Edge. There’s something wrong about going away and eating at a chain restaurant/eatery.

After that we went for a drive and completed a loop of the island through Rhyll before heading down to another beach – Smiths beach, which is popular with surfers. There were more people here, but we had a walk down to the rocky end of the beach anyway before moving on to see the Nobbies. Heh.

The Nobbies were even busier than the beach, with several busloads of tourists visiting when we arrived. We stopped for a cup of tea in the generic visitor centre and looked at heading down the boardwalk to take a better look, but the crowds of tourists and seagulls put us off. Instead we went back to the B&B for a rest before the Penguin Parade.

The Penguin Parade was quite an experience. The tourists and crowds were frustrating, but for the most part all behaved themselves. The penguins of course were cute, and arrived just after the sun went down and continued for over an hour in dribs and drabs. I’ve only ever seen them in the wild at Granite Island, in much smaller numbers, so this was very impressive. After they come up over the becah, you can walk along the boardwalk and watch them heading up to their burrows, even see some of the chicks coming out to meet their parents.

An early night was calling, so we grabbed a snack and went straight to bed. Breakfast the next morning was quite an affair – a huge choice of courses including cooked, all fresh and delicious, served in the well-presented dining room with silverware. I could almost get used to that. Another couple had arrived late the previous evening so we stuck around and had a chat with them before settling up the bill, saying goodbye to the lambs and heading off with a loaded car.

Before we left, we thought we’d try one more walk so headed to Pyramid Rock, where you can walk along the cliff down to a beach. We walked to first lookout and found ourselves nearly getting blown away by the winds that had come in overnight and decided it would stupid and probably dangerous to continue, so got back in the car and kept moving.

A few stops on the way home and we were back in the living room by 2.30pm or so. A wonderfully quick getaway.

Second Anniversary

On September 1st it passed the second year I’ve been in Melbourne. As pointed out in my last post, I’m quite settled here and enjoying everything.

Anyway, the weekend before last, I took a day-trip out to Mt Buller to see Australian snow for the first time. After doing some investigative work, the best deal I could find was through the tourist agency ExtraGreen for a bus from the city and back. After a last-minute upgrade, we ended up on a good quality bus on our way out of the city at 6am. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t exactly pleasant, and as we headed to higher ground, the rain started to fall. It continued all day, and all but ruined the day.

If it hadn’t been raining, we could have hired some snow shoes and gone for a hike, or completed the Gnome Roam (as it was, I could only find one gnome on the clock tower before giving up), or even just had a better look around the village. Unfortunately, after some lunch and some more skipping between buildings, we headed up Summit Road to a pub and spent some time playing Buckhunter! The snow barely got a look in.

I was almost grateful to be on the bus going home after the wasted day there. As we pulled into Mansfield (where people had hired snow-gear), the rain cleared and there was some beautiful late afternoon light. As we had some time to kill, we went for a quick walk around nearby and took some photos before the clouds covered the rest of the sky.

Other than that, nothing too big has been happening for me. This Friday past, I had free tickets to the Comedy Club, where I got to see Adam Rozenbachs as MC, with Terry North and Lehmo. Terry North is an English comedian that I’ve seen on two other occasions, and he still has no new material. Thankfully Lehmo and Adam Rozenbachs both made up for this and it was an enjoyable night.

I’ve been quite busy at work recently, but I’ve also been to the movies a few times. I saw District 9 a few weeks ago. This was a refreshing movie. The fact that it was South African, with little American influence, was quite noticable. The acting was a little iffy at times – with the main character barely developing at all. Apart from that, the special effects and costumes were impressive, and I liked the movie.

The other movie I saw was Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Now this movie has had a fair amount of press, and I was looking forward to it. It didn’t disappoint. The violence was plentiful, and there was more than enough dialogue, but overall I felt that it worked. The in-depth dialogue and speeches were, at times, overkill, but added to the rest of the action, it was fantastic. The acting was fantatic, with mostly unknown (to me at least) actors. The character of Col. Landa, played by Christoph Waltz, was particularly impressive.

As the Melbourne Silver Mine’s Unsensored 09 exhibition closes on Wednesday, I highly recommend heading down if you get the chance. It sounds like it has been quite successful, with a number of people passing through and some of the pieces have sold (multiple times!) My image hasn’t sold, but I was aiming to bring it home to adorn our wall instead. It certainly would have been nice to make a sale, but after agonising over the images, I decided to hang them just for the sake of hanging, rather than to make money. This is the first time my work has been displayed in public, and I’m quite content just to be able to see my work large and on the wall!

While on the subject of photography, I visited Scienceworks Museum last weekend to see the Star Wars exhibition. Taking my camera and a couple of lenses was the easy bit, but with many of the displays poorly lit and behind glass smeared with children’s fingerprints, getting the photos was a bit harder. I took my still new-ish 40D with my 50mm f/1.8, and by using my adaptor, I also had two Nikon mount lenses – 85mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/2.8. Unfortunately the former of these was of little use in the crowded rooms, but the 24mm was useful on occasion to get some close-ups of pieces.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to see any more movies at MIFF, but I did see the Whitlams playing at the Corner Hotel last weekend. Their show was quite extensive, with only one support and playing one album in full (Eternal Nightcap). It was a fantastic show with an intriguing crowd. Thankfully, MUFF starts soon, and I should be able to see a few more of those.

Just this weekend, I saw ‘Drag Me To Hell’ as it’s cinema run is finishing. I thoroughly enjoyed this, despite mixed reviews. There were moments where I momentarily cringed and thought it would go down hill, but it managed to redeem itself. The acting, for the most part, was very good, but I felt there were too many ‘jumps’ to be fun. It ended up distracting from the story and acting. On the whole though, it was fantastic. Hopefully this week I will manage to see District 9 too.

While I’m remembering, I never got around to mentioning the latest Harry Potter movie. As a movie, it was fantastic. The darkness, the acting and the effects were all very good and the movie moved along nicely. Obviously, as a comparison to the book, it’s disappointing. Many, apparently unimportant, aspects and scenes were left out, and there were huge chunks missing. Also, the scene of Dumbledore’s death, which could and should have been amazing, was a huge letdown.

So last month my parents were in the country – mostly in Adelaide, but flew in and out of Melbourne so there was a chance for us to catch up. I took them around to a couple of places and showed them the city. We had an afternoon at Fairfield Boat House, and I treated them to a dinner at Punch Lane Wine Bar. Both were delicious and I strongly recommend them if you have a chance to try either.

Other than that, it’s been the same old photography/knitting/reading/socialising mess for me! I’ve been knitting a cardigan for a friend who is expecting a new baby, and I’ve branched out a bit with a striped pattern and different stitches – it’s coming along very nicely and pictures will be posted once it’s completed. I’ve also been using a very easy bootie pattern and made a few pairs with leftover yarn. It’s very basic, but quite productive as you can do them almost with your eyes closed.

Photography-wise, as per my last post, there’s an exhibition of film photography next week run by the Melbourne Silver Mine group. I have a set of three photos displayed at this, which have been printed and framed but I haven’t had a chance to collect them just yet. What I know of the other shots are very good, if a little ‘Melbourne-y’, and I’d highly recommend you head along if you get a chance.

For my birthday I was given a Holga 120N with a small flash, and I eagerly tried these out at the last Melbourne group Flickr meet. Although I mixed up the film size without a mask, the photos came out quite nicely on Neopan 400.

Last night I managed to see the first (and probably only) movie of the Melbourne International Film Festival, a Norwegian one called ‘Dead Snow’. It was a story about Nazi zombies attacking a group of young, attractive students. I really enjoyed it; there were laughs and jumps, and the writer knew how to make fun of himself. It turned out very well, and it’s made me want to see more movies of a similar vein – many of which I own on DVD but haven’t watched yet. I’ll get to them!

I don’t know that I’ll get time to see any others, which is a shame as there seems to be a lot on (even with those pulled out for political reasons). I’ve heard good things about Tony Manero and Chocolate though.

Moving and settling

So, the big move. It was all rather quick and we’ve only just caught our breaths now. It was less than two weeks of being offered the place to us getting the keys, and we started to move straight away. The Friday that we collected the keys, we did four or five runs with Kat’s car of the little bits – things I could carry up the (three flights of) stairs and that we didn’t trust removalists with. My legs held out and we were fairly successful. As we started to move stuff in though, we began to panic that all of our stuff wouldn’t fit. This was to be proven wrong the next day.

On the Saturday, we did a couple of runs (with extra hands of course) in the morning before the removalists came. Once they turned up, it was around an hour to pack up the truck, with all of us helping carry stuff out to the truck. I was predicting up at an hour per flight of stairs at the other end, but it was done much quicker than that. The plan to get removalists was a good one, as it would have taken hours (and days) for Kat’s back and my knees to get everything up here!

As it turns out, once there was furniture around and beds were set up, the rooms seemed biggeer. It was clear from the start that we were downsizing, but not by as much as we though. Everything fits, and we’re only clearing out stuff so that we can buy more (mostly in the form of books!)

I’m quite content at this new place. I’ve quickly adjusted to taking the train to work, but thankfully it’s never too busy (standing on the way in, but always get a seat coming home) and I had paid for monthly tickets at times when I was temping at the old place, so the cost wasn’t a shock. As the last boxes are being unpacked (or we permanently position them in corners of rooms), the place is feeling much more like home. However, if (and that’s a big if), we move again, the furniture is all staying up here. I’ll buy new stuff for the next place!!

On top of this havoc, my parents arrived in the country on the 30th. They’re here for a month, but only had 3 nights in Melbourne initially before going over to Adelaide by car. It’s certainly good to see them again, but it’s strange seeing familiar faces in place that I’ve never seen them. We caught up for dinner the three nights they were here, and will do so again at the other end of the trip when they come back before they fly out.

Other than that, it’s just been a matter of settling in and trying to get on with things. I’ve been knitting quite avidly for the last few months – first for my friend Kayleigh, then for my colleague who has just left on maternity leave, and now another friend has announced his wife is expecting, so I’m planning the next thing. On the wonderful Ravelry, I found a pattern for very easy booties, and I’ve done three pairs of these with leftover yarn which would otherwise be passed onto the Salvos or hoarded until I come up with a better plan. I’ve done a pair in under two hours, so it’s a relatively quick pattern (for my speed of knitting), and they’re easily done on straight needles. However, after two relatively plain baby jumpers, I’m about to branch out a little. More details as they’re decided!

Post teens

As some of you may or may not know, the Tuesday just past was my 20th birthday. This marks the end of my teenage years and perhaps the start of my growing up. Or not. I spent my birthday at the zoo, playing with my new camera (a Canon EOS 40D).

Before I turned 20, I didn’t want to leave my teens. Now I realise that I’ll probably be taken a little more seriously when people ask my age, and well, not much else will change.

Moving onto my new camera though. The 40D is on it’s way out, with the newer 50D more widely available, most shops have sold out of their 40Ds. Thankfully Camera Lane still had one left, and being new and cheaper than Ebay, was definitely a good buy. All of the batteries, memory cards and lenses from my 10D can change straight over.

The 10D has been giving me problems for a few months now, it’s most common problem being ‘crashing’ or resetting itself just after taking a photo. Besides that, it’s achingly slow and has a fairly low image quality compared with what’s available now. The 40D however, while not being the latest model (although is very similar to the 50D), is much quicker, the buttons are more efficient and the quality is higher.

I took it to Melbourne Zoo on Tuesday, along with my zoom lens (28-200mm), to give it a try. I’m very impressed with the quality, and the ISO can be taken up to 800 without crippling noise. I’m quite delighted with my purchase, and the zoo was fantastic fun.

My friend also bought me an adaptor so that I can use one of his many lenses, and I took his 50mm f/1.2 with me to the zoo for use in the butterfly house, and despite the fogging issues, it worked a treat.

Other than that, my birthday was fairly uneventful. On the Saturday before, my friends and I went for dinner at Cafe Umago on Brunswick Street, before going out for some drinks.

On the Saturday morning Kat and I had been looking at rental properties, as we’re looking to move out together to a smaller place. We saw three places, and all were reasonable so we applied them. On the Monday afternoon, I received a phonecall offering us the ‘best’ of the three, an apartment in Brunswick! This is fantastic news, as it means that we don’t have to keep dragging ourselves out of bed on a Saturday morning and look at places. Unfortunately it also means that we have to pack up everything.

I’m a pretty compulsive person, and I love organising things. The mammoth task of starting to pack is a huge hump to overcome though, and I needed an entire Saturday to make a decent dent in it. I’m easily distracted by things such as ordering my books, negatives, folding clothes neatly and looking at each and every item as I pack it, so it took a while but I managed to pack up the majority of the things I won’t need between now and Friday/Saturday! I can almost guarantee my laptop will be the last thing to get packed.

Great Ocean Road etc (Part 3)

After raining all night, Monday was a little worrying to wake to. We had decided to head up to Hopetoun Falls, but there were two routes to get it. With one being labelled a track, we were unsure whether we’d be able to get through it in a Toyota Corolla, so we headed back to the information centre to double check what sort of condition it was in. Instead, she recommended that we go back the way went the day before and along the Turtons Tourist Track. This worked just fine for us, and Turtons Track was simply beautiful.

The small of the other track down to the falls however, was a little more worrying, and the turn off for the waterfall even more so. Taking it nice and slow, and seeing virtually no tourists, helped us to arrive in one piece. Still raining, we headed down into the rainforest to the Hopetoun Falls, which were worth the walk down (and the fear of having to get back up the hill). Again, photos to come.

Next we decided to head to the Triplet Falls, but getting lost and having to do a u-turn when we realised we were heading back towards Apollo Bay, we decided to stop for an early lunch instead. Kat and Trav discovered the small area of Redwoods just near the Hopetoun falls, and we went exploring. The area is simply stunning with the towering Redwoods and beautiful stream running past.

By this time we deemed it late enough that most tourists would have left and we could go to the Otway Fly – something Kat had really been looking forward to. It was still raining, and at the bottom of the rainforest, we might have stayed slightly dry, but 27m up, there was no chance. Still, the views were something different, and the 47m tower was fun (if only to see Trav so scared!) The walk back to the visitors centre wasn’t quite so fun, but headbutting the dinosaur at the end of the walk was worth it.

After that, we decided to take the same route back to Apollo Bay, along Turton’s Track and through Skene’s Creek, wanting to stick to roads that we knew while it kept raining and was getting darker.

Again, we had to dry out all of our clothes, and decided to have another lazy night in with ice cream, nachos and the projector.

The next morning we started our way out of town. We came back along the Great Ocean Road again, wanting to have another burger and chips at the same cafe! Between Lorne and Geelong though, we headed inland and came in through Geelong and back to the city. The rest of the afternoon was a chance to dry off and catch up on washing before we all went back to work.

Great Ocean Road etc (Part 2)

Sunday (7th) dawned earlier than usual for us, so after our complimentary continental breakfast (only until 9.30am, but considering we were the only ones in our unit, I’m sure it didn’t just disappear after that time), we headed down to the tourist information building to get some better maps and details about the waterfalls and walks.

Deciding to take it easy for the day, we headed to Stevenson Falls, up near Forrest, which was considered either a 20 minute or 1 hour easy walk, depending where you took the car. As we got up to the turn-off, we ended up on a narrow, almost gravel road, which caused initial panic, but became easier as the weekend went on.

As we came up to the carpark (a campsite), we could see that the road to the second carpark was open – which would mean a shorter walk – so we took it and without getting bogged, arrived in the carpark.

The walk was easy, and very nice, just as the brochure described! The path was pretty wet, but no rain was seen (yet), and we had no problems getting up to the waterfall.

The metal platform caused some problems, with the feet of my tripod slipping through! I still managed to get some shots (to come), and the area was simply beautiful. Travis let his adventurous side come through as he climbed over the other side of the river, then up onto the massive rocks in front of the waterfall. I could see it all ending in tears, but he’s home and we’re all fine! This was also the point where I noticed all the lichens and fungi growing – obviously, being a rainforest, the damp and dark conditions are perfect for it.

As we headed back to town, it was decided that I was getting fish and chips for lunch, to keep me happy and quiet. It was delicious, and there is nothing quite like eating fish and chips, on the coast, in winter while it drizzles!

Instead of heading to another waterfall (we’d seen two, we’d seen them all), we decided to take a look at Mait’s Rest walk – which takes you past a 300 year old myrtle beech tree. Again this was a very easy walk, which unfortunately meant there were lots of children, but the forest was so dense that you turned a corner and could barely hear them. It was stunning – although I’m disappointed they didn’t point out this specific tree; we’re left assuming that one of the many huge trees is 300 years old and the rest are only 200-and-something!

The rain was coming down quite steadily by this point; Kat kept pointing out that we’re in the rainforest in winter and I kept arguing that the rainforest could do without rain for a couple of days. While we were out in that direction, we decided that our last stop of the day would be the Cape Otway lighthouse.

Although I couldn’t see it from the carpark, the lady in the shop was adamant that it was just over the hill, so we paid our preposterous $15 and went through. The rain and wind was a little disruptive, but we skipped the communications museum and went straight up to the lighthouse. Grateful that we made the climb to the top, the views were amazing and the wind from up there just exhilarating. Looking out to the rough sea, it’s obvious why the lighthouse was necessary. Travis was only a little bit scared.

Coming back through, we also managed to buy discounted tickets for the Otway Fly, which would be one of the activities the next day. All that was left was getting home to dry out before dinner.

The gas heater turned out to be a godsend, as our jeans and shoes all went in front of it, as well as ourselves. Thankfully we managed to drag ourselves out to dinner, and we went to Cafe 153, which was slightly disappointing. The food was tasty but nothing special and the service was a bit of a let down, but at least I managed to get some seafood for the second time that day!