Everyone likes a cockatoo

G'day

Hozitgahn?

So the rain continued until yesterday and even today (Wednesday) it's a bit nippy and cloudy. Hum. On the plus side, you can't complain (lest you end up sounding like a whingeing pom) about a country where they give you a day off for a horse race. Yes, Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day and we got the day off which was noice. I went over to Captain Cook's Cottage, transferred to a park here from his hometown of Great Ayton (near Darlington!) in 1934. Not sure why it was brought over, though apart from some rather dodgy (allegedly) Yorkshire accents on the audio guide, it was all rather pleasant and the on-site historian was very excited to meet not just a Brit, but a Brit historian and one who was born just down the road from Captain Cook. Forty-five minutes after I'd mentioned these facts to him I regretted doing so.

And then as I was waiting for the tram home I saw a cockatoo! Yes, here is the (very white) bird itself (apologies for the blurriness - the photo was taken on my phone camera and I was pretty thrilled to see it):

And apart from cockatoos (everyone likes a cockatoo) other things I'm enjoying include:

• lots of different flavoured tofus in the supermarkets (of little interest to anyone else I'm sure)
• music at the train station. Footscray Station (nearest to the Lonely Planet office) has music on the platforms in the evenings. First time I heard it I thought it was just some annoying bogan playing it through their phone, but no, the likes of Kylie and the Bee Gees (Staying Alive) are played on all the station's speakers. There seems to be an Aussie theme (I think the Bee Gees grew up in Oz) so I'm looking forward to INXS and Midnight Oil. Not looking forward so much to Rolf Harris and Men Down Under.
• Total Wipeout on TV. And not just the UK version but the US version too, with enormous Americans (obviously) falling off the big redballs. Oh yes.

Things I'm not enjoying so much

• Melbourne is SUCH a car city with pedestrians very much second-class citizens. Trying to cross the road is a tiresome endeavour - jaywalking is technically illegal and traffic lights can take anything up to five minutes to change. Crossing one street diagonally the other night took me eight minutes! I almost forgot where I was going.
• Estate agents. There are virtually NO furnished flats to rent in Melbourne and when you enquire about their possibility with an estate agent they reply as if you've just told them you've shat in their coffee.
• The tap water. Bad, really bad (but safe - apparently).

And that's it for now. Weather is set to improve so I'll have to get out with the camera again and snap some more pics. See you soon.

Cliff