why wy?

We just drove the distance of KL and back, to see whales.

Warrnambool is about 3 to 4 hours away, depending on how fast you drive. It's a quiet seaside/industrial town, with roundabouts instead of traffic lights. We got in 15 minutes after the last movie started (850pm, The Village), so we ended up doing a pub crawl.

First stop was the criterion hotel, pretty much a dive (aussie for dingy, rough pub). It even had a big game hunter sega shooting game. Shoot buck! And moose! Dang, you shot a cow!

Second was the warrnambool hotel, a more upmarket place that had a dingy ceiling, but on purpose. They had montain goat ale on tap, which is the best beer I have tasted. It's a boutique brew, and tastes of honey and flowers. We also met really nice people, although country accent + many beers = mumble mumble huh? I just nodded and smiled lots.

There was a distracting conversion going on, with the guy and girl next to me. The guy said all the wrong things, like this priceless one:""I know you have low self-esteem because of your looks, but you shouldn't.'' At one point, his target and I exchanged looks, and we almost burst out laughing.

We tried the criterion again, but there was cover and a noisy band playing, so we continued to the royal hotel. More drinking again (this group seemed like students) and a few who had graduated from the tim-school of dancing. At about this time, the resident singer-one-man-band did a cover of bruce hornsby's that's just the way it is, and I could have sworn he sang that's just the way it is, everyone's pissed. Maybe it's just the country accent.

Whale watching was great, we saw at least two pairs of mother and calf, and they were about 20m from the shore. Ignore the top right photo on the link, the water isn't that blue. We then drove to an extinct volcano crater which is now a national park, got up close to wild kangeroos, koalas and emus. Emus are like giant pigeons - they hung around the picnic tables waiting for scraps. One even wanted to follow us into the car.

We drove some more, stopped by the 12 apostles, dodged tourists taking photos... and ended up home 5 hours later.

best music to drive to:
soundtrack to kill bill
chemical brothers, hoops

Joe left last night, and it was a quick goodbye at the airport to avoid paying hefty parking fees. It still feels like he's gone out for the day and will be back later, not two months away. Pictures of trip to come, come back in a few days.