Australia is...
...beautiful.
I've driven all along the coastline of the inner bay, from Mornington Peninsula up into the heart of Melbourne.
Even with the cold, rainy weather, it was wonderful to explore the rocky shorelines and eat lunch at beach-side cafes. On one particularly chilly afternoon, I had the best fish and chips--the flake fish had just been caught that morning, down the street. It was piping hot and salty and delicious!!
Actually, I was really happy about the weather. The air whipping off the sea smelled like Autumn and the rain made me think of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and playing in Fall leaves. How lucky is this girl? I took a holiday from the summer heat and stepped into an entirely different season of the year!
In two small peninsula towns, Mornington and Frankston, the shore is craggy and rough. I climbed up a hill, scrambled down some rocks--sometimes streeetching out my leg to get a foot on the next step before sort of skip-hopping across--and stood on top of a cliff, mesmerized by the sunset. The wind whirled in every direction and the red, jutting rock I sat on totally reminded me of the rock Ariel sings from in The Little Mermaid (you know the one, when she hits the final note in "Part of that World" and splashes up out of the ocean--every girl practices that song in the bath tub when they're little and splooshes walls of water up out of the tub all over the bathroom floor. Well, I did.)
As the sun sank closer to the horizon, a path of shimmery light reached out across the sea. The water sparkled, as though the sunshine had decided to rest out on top of the waves and float around for a while before it shrank back over the edge of the world and the sky turned dark.
Another great thing about the rain: I saw beautiful rainbows as I drove around out in the "bush." It was a lovely place. I can't wait to post some of the fun things we did on the trip....including seeing the kangaroos and ringos and koala bears, oh my!
