Jon Visits

The South Melbourne Market Tram 96 stop near our place-here I am sending Jon off at the end of his stay.

Back in September, our friend Jon came out to Australia for a three week trip. Before and after his tours of Sydney, Western Australia, and Tasmania, he stayed with us in Melbourne. I've known Jon for about seven years. He was one of the first people to join the soccer team I started back in Denver, and he keeps the Smurf team going today! The Smurfs used to do a lot of camping, karaoke nights, parties, and BBQs together back in the day. It was good to reconnect with a Colorado friend.

Jon and I biked down to Brighton Beach on the afternoon he arrived, with a stop in St Kilda. We got some takeaway from Bala's and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. Luckily, we had a nice, sunny day for our ride.

The next day, I drove Jon down part of the Great Ocean Road. 

He was lucky enough to get to see several Australian animals all in one day!

I spotted this echidna on the side of the road; it looks like it got its nose stuck in some sort of ring!

We saw plenty of kangaroos on the Anglesea golf course.

Jon has a pretty sweet zoom lens, so I used his camera to get this shot of a guy at Bells Beach.

We didn't go all the way to Cape Otway Road, but we saw plenty of koalas near Kennett River.

And while we were out of the car looking for koalas, I spotted a kookaburra!

So I'd say it was a pretty successful day trip down to the Great Ocean Road and hopefully a good start to Jon's Australian experience. He has some cool pictures of the other parts of his trip (and all his trips-he's quite the world traveler) on his website-check it out: www.sunlightpeak.com/travel/

Thanks for the cool pictures Jon, and I hope you enjoyed your time in Australia!

It wasn't easy, but we found a place in Melbourne that serves kangaroo for dinner!