Post Vacation Blues

I am going through a weird withdrawal phase right now. Having serious holiday blues. I think the clinical term is post-vacation blues. After spending more than a month in vacation, I am now strangely detached from work life. I have no idea what I was working on the last day of work. No idea where I start again, and whom I owe. 

2020 was a particularly tiring year, which I why I decided to take such a long holiday. But maybe I overdid it. Enjoyed Melbourne's , what third winter , this year. A very cold and rainy December, just like back home. Saw dark blue seas and shallow beaches.  Walked through woodlands and around tall trees. Breathed in the eucalyptus laden fresh air. Saw more animals and birds than humans. Completely went off the diet. Pretty sure gained a few kilos. 

But now when I suit up, I realize how fortunate I have been, to be able to take time off work. To be able to say I still have a job, in this troubled economy. To spend more money in a month than what I usually spend in six months. And to easily forget what a horrible year the last one was.

The good news is already starting to come in. Australians will be given the Astrazeneca vaccine, it is being reported. By March. Splendid. And twitter has banned its biggest cyberbully !

This is going to be a good year. I can tell. Only thing is, my mind is still somewhere lost in holiday.

Time to get back to work. Theres lots of to be done.

Portarlington Trip

 

Have you heard of Portarlington ? Its a little coastal township in the Port of Phillip Bay, right at the entrance to the sea.  A short ferry ride away from Docklands, Melbourne, the place has amazing views of the bay, and is the perfect place for a short holiday. It reminded me of those picturesque British coastlines often seen in movies. A village by the sea. And thats where we went for a holiday during a long weekend.

 

 

Hiked the 1.3 km Rambler’s walk. Best part is that all the attractions are within walking distance of the port, and we saw a lot of visitors walking and cycling across the coasts. What continues to surprise me is that these idyllic holiday points are within a few hours travel from the city, yet the place itself is like stuck in time. It looks and feels as if one has gone back in time to a quieter , calmer time.

Tourists, mostly families visit the place in groups, yet they are mindful of the cleanliness of the place. There is no rubbish on the ground, and no crowds rushing in a hurry. The vehicles drive slowly, giving way to hikers and cyclists, and children have a blast in the children’s park. There are public grilling areas free for use, people can bring in the foods they want to cook and eat. And everyone is expected to clean up afterwards. There are affordable eateries across the street, nothing is over priced.It is a historic town, and they do have their own museums and churches to show. But there is no graffitti defacing public property.  The free restrooms are clean, and there are fountains providing drinking water.

 

We in India still have centuries to go before we can reach this level of maturity. And love for nature, things old and new.

Trip to Phillip Island

 

Man, I’ve been busy. With all the work in office, calls and meetings and gym and yoga and what not, how many hours does one get for oneself ? I wonder how these Auzzies manage to do it. Now one of the reasons we had considered and decided to move here to Australia is to have fun. Enough of this ‘work yourself to death’ mentality they spread in India.  Have fun. See the world. Have some time for oneself.

So thanks to the Queen’s birthday, we got a long weekend to indulge in this time. Went on trip to Phillip island. Its a small part of the country, isolated in the sea, but now connected via bridge to Melbourne. The whole place is one big reservation basically.  Like a huge national park, for birds, animals. And maybe even trees. Theres hundreds of miles of coastline, beautifully preserved , clean of all those rubbish and eyesore usually seen on (Indian) beaches.  And the weather , don’t get me started on the weather. Even in the winter, the place gets a lot of sun, and its perfect for hiking ! Or in our case, lazily dragging feat through the sand.

The place is about 140 kms away from Melbourne, so under 2 hours of driving time. Tour operators run day services to the place, so no worries if you can’t drive. There are some hotels, but I think most people just stay on Airbnb if one needs to stay overnight. For some reason, there are huge surf shops, everyone is driving huge cars into the beach. There is a Koala reservation centre half way through, but all the one we saw were sleeping high in the trees. Also, they don’t let you hold and cuddle these creatures like they do in the zoo. The southern and western coasts of the island lie within the Phillip Island Important Bird Area, so identified by BirdLife International because of its importance in supporting significant populations of fairy penguins, short-tailed shearwaters and Pacific gulls. In addition, there is a wildlife park where wallabies and kangaroos roam freely amongst the visitors and can be fed by hand. Seal Rocks, at the western end of the island, hosts the largest colony of fur seals in Australia (up to 16,000). In recent years, other than local population of critically endangered endemic Burrunan dolphins or migratory killer whales, southern right whales and humpback whales are starting to show recoveries in the area long after commercial and illegal hunts by the Soviet Union with the help of Japan in 1970s, and the numbers using the area as nursery are growing rapidly, allowing a rise in hopes to establish commercial whale watching activities in the vicinity of the island.

But the real highlight of the place is the penguin parade. Every evening, a bunch of ~1000 penguins waddle up from the deep blue ocean, into their burrows on the island. They have been continusly studied since the sixties, so by now, they are used to being stared at. Again, they can’t be watched from close quarters, due to it being in the evening, and because the burrow area is restricted to visitors. It is amazing how the staff have taken care not to disturb these gentle creatures in any way, opting to let them enjoy life in the wide open.

We also went trekking to Pinnacles, its a 2 hour return hike at the southern most tip of the island. Blue, pristine waters. High in the air on the cliffs. The feeling cannot be easily explained.

Again, the way these sites have been preserved it astonishing. Auzzies really know mother nature, and have steps in place to preservce ancient sites like these. And visitors happily comply. Most of the hiking areas and beaches are free, and see millions of tourists annually. But there was no litter to be seen on the beach. Neither in the water. With only a few sign boards asking visitors to keep the place clean, they have managed to enforce a cleanliness lockdown.

 

Happy to have moved here. And there are still more places to explore.