Boats, bats and a birthday barbeque bash

Last weekend we went out with some friends to a park in Melbourne to see flying foxes, which are giant bats. I have to admit, I was skeptical about seeing them, since it was the middle of the day. We walked along the river for a while, and the park itself is very beautiful. It felt like we were in the middle of the country, though the buildings of Melbourne were close, just out of sight. We came upon the flying fox colony, and boy, was I wrong. There were hundreds of them sleeping upside down in the trees and dozens more flying around. I don't know why they were awake during the day, but they swooped in waves. When they landed on the trees, they flipped upside down and wrapped themselves in their wings. It was really neat.



After photographing the bats for a while we strolled back the way we'd come, walking along the river. We eventually came to a boathouse and cafe area, and there were lots of people having picnics. It was Australian Father's Day, so we there were tons of people in the park. Lots of people were playing Frisbee and footy, and lots were renting rowboats, canoes and kayaks and taking to the river. We didn't have a Frisbee, and there was a long queue to rent a boat, so we just sat on the grass in the sunshine for a while. We resolved to come back the next week.



We went back yesterday, and since it wasn't Father's Day, it was much less crowded. Melbourne has a bunch of gas barbeques set up in public parks, and they're all free to use. The city pays for the gas, and you can use it whenever you want and clean it when you're done. We stopped off at the market on our way to the park and picked up hamburgers, sausages and potato salad. We had a right great barbeque when we got there. Leslie may be right - food may indeed taste better outside. We then rented a rowboat (there was no queue this time) and rowed on the river. Our goal was to row up to where the bats were and get closer pictures of them (they live accross the river from where we were last week, roosting in trees on a private golf course), but that proved to be too far. Turns out it's faster to walk than to row upstream. Our time was running out, so we just turned the boat around and rowed back to the boathouse. Our friend Ryan was an excellent rower, but Leslie and I couldn't seem to make the thing go in a straight line - when we were at the helm it was mostly going in circles and travelling in a sort of corkscrew motion. To be honest, though, the boys were very gracious and didn't make me row - I just tried it out to see how hard it was. It was my birthday, so I declared that anyone whose birthday it was shouldn't have to row. Like good sports, they accepted this.



When we landed we played Frisbee for a while, then took off to get to another party. A friend was having a barbeque on the other side of the city, so we trekked out there. It was a fun party, with people playing guitar and wonderful food. It was a very barbeque-heavy day.



It's exciting; I've never had a spring birthday before. It's rarely warm enough to go boating and play outside on my birthday, as it's the beginning of fall, and even if it is warm, it's the end of summer so no one has that spring energy and desire to spend as much time as possible outdoors. I like having a spring birthday - it's a wonderful time of year.

It is supposed to get colder this week (it was 20 degrees and above last week), but even though it's dropping to 15 or so, I still think Melburnians have nothing to complain about when they complain about the weather. It's already spring weather, and last week was beautiful and warm. We had two or three weeks of quite cold weather, but it was never too cold to ride to work, never so cold it was miserable, never so cold you needed anything more than a coat.

Two weeks ago we also saw an eclipse. It was neat - I don't think I've ever seen one before. The moon turned a dusky orange colour, though it looks red in the pictures.