Rio after Melbourne (Part 2)
In my last post I showed you some of the culinary highlights of my trip to Australia. Today I wanted to show you some of the other things that caught my eye. I’m aware that this is a blog about Rio, not Melbourne, so I promise that after this we’ll be back in Brazil for the foreseeable future!
Beaches and coastline
With the beaches being such a central part of life in Rio, Mrs Eat Rio was very keen to see how the beaches of Melbourne compared. Although St Kilda was nice, it didn’t really come close to the city beaches of Rio. Once we got out of town we saw some much nicer beaches, but I still think Rio wins this contest!
Along the Great Ocean Road lies the beach town of Lorne. Pretty quiet this time of year and not an umbrella or beer seller in sight!
Nice waves for surfing in Lorne.
This was Bell’s Beach which will be familiar to fans of Point Break (“Death on a stick out there mate!“).
My workmate Pedro reliably informs me that this manoeuvre is called a ‘Cutback’. I know nothing about surfing…
These cliff towers are known as ‘The 12 Apostles’. Every so often another one crumbles into the sea – I think there are only about 7 or 8 left now. Still, they’re impressive aren’t they?
On the day we visited there was a massive storm with really strong winds. Beautiful and very dramatic!
Told you it was windy! Mrs Eat Rio was almost blown away!
For more evidence of how windy it was, click here to see a waterfall going up!
Wildlife
Like Brazil, Australia is packed full of all kinds of awesome wildlife. The main difference is that most of Australia’s wildlife will kill you if given half a chance!
Here you see a titanic struggle between me and this vicious killer – I wanted my photo and Skippy wanted his grass. In the end we both got what we wanted and agreed to be friends.
A Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo (left) and Crimson Rosella.
The brilliantly named Superb Fairywren. This gorgeous little thing was hopping around in the bushes outside my window just long enough for me to get this snap.
A real-life wild kangaroo.
This is an Australian Magpie and these can be quite vicious if you get too close to their nests. They have a rather nice song though. Apparently the German name for this bird is Weißrücken-Flötenvogel (Whitebacked Flute-bird).
Probably more effective than a “Stay on the path” sign!
Other cool stuff
OK, so this glorified post-holiday slideshow is almost over! I just had to show you these last few things.
Everfresh is a bit of a dream-team crew of Melbournian street/graffiti artists. This massive and very impressive piece in Fitzroy is hard to capture in a single image. Very cool.
This is Hoosier Lane – an alleyway absolutely crammed full of graffiti and tagging. It reminded me of a slightly messier (and sorry, inferior) version of São Paulo’s Beco do Batman.
A bar made out of an old shipping container? Sure, why not?! This is Section 8.
Shopping in the CBD (Central Business District). Fun (and cheaper than Rio!).
I’ll leave you with the very last photo I took while we were in Australia. As we waited for our flight out of Sydney, I glanced out at the runway and saw that Australia had one last treat for us:
That’s quite a send-off. Thanks to everyone who made our trip such a pleasure!
Wouldn´t it be cool if on the sign instead of “snakes” they´d have written “dementia”?
And the ending to “Point Break”, wow: til´ this day still so bad that it´s good. R.I.P Patrick Swayze.
Oh, thought you might enjoy this http://semancha.com/2013/09/08/brazil-2014-an-election-primer/
Ha ha, I made Mrs Eat Rio watch Point Break again a few days ago – would agree with your verdict if you removed the “that it’s good” part ;)
OMG, a classic like “Point Break” taking heat from a man who once sang praises for “Tango and Cash”. Ok, I respect your opinion but credit to Swayze as he seemed to make the best out of crappy material; while Reeves just took the script and went full retard. And, as a wise man once said, “you should never go full full retard” (btw in the extras the same wise man said you should never go full bird nerd). :-)
I wonder what the surfer chick from PB is doing these days.
Ha ha! Whoops! I meant to say “she would agree with your verdict if you removed the “that it’s good” part”. I am a fully paid up Point Break fan, despite the fact that it hasn’t aged too well.
Wow, not at all how I expected Australia to look! Looks almost, dare I say it, like parts of Northern California (!?!?). Very nice!
And I would have kidnapped that little Kangaroo if I were you. Come on, you’ve lived in Brazil long enough that you should know how to do a kidnapping quickly and efficiently. (Joking, joking galera)
Glad you had a nice getaway!
I was more in love with that little Superb Fairywren but then remember I’m a bird nerd! :)
Top marks for visiting Bell’s beach from PB! I watched it again with the wife and she couldn’t understand why I was raving about it. Me neither but I guess that’s nostalgia. RIP Bodie and P.Swayze.
Yeah, same here. I guess you had to be there right? :)