Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Special outings in the thirteenth month, 9 May - 9 June, 2010

We had two big outings this month. The first was to Melbourne Zoo. They have a new marine exhibit which is designed so that you can see exhibits such as the seals from several different levels and viewpoints. This is the underwater spot, and Sparrow got right up to the glass to look. However she kept turning away just as the seals swam by the window, because some other little kids next to us had chips and that was much more important.

Then, immediately after the marine stuff, squid rings! We didn't try to connect what we'd just looked at with what we were eating. That will come later, I'm sure. For now it's just finding out if she's willing to eat strange items (and the answer is maybe, but chips are best, and chasing seagulls also has a certain appeal).

The giraffes were cool. She always seems to like those, we see them at both this zoo and the Werribee Open Range one and each time she's been interested. It always makes me think of the kid in one of my Scienceworks Lightning Room shows who answered my question "What animals glow in the dark?" with a very excited "Giraffes!", because that was his favourite animal and therefore obviously the answer to ANY animal question.

A pause to sit on a bench in the Indonesian section, after going to see the elephants and failing. We failed because there was a new baby elephant (called Mali, like one of the girls in Sparrow's baby group) and we accidentally got there at keeper talk time so it was wall-to-wall people. Which Sparrow didn't mind. James and I were happier drifting on a little further and having a short quiet moment. Sparrow found woodchips, and stacked them neatly on the bench where they apparently belonged. She is such a tidy and organised soul. Don't know where she gets it from. Her categorising is a little creative, but I'm OK with that.

Second big outing of the month: the Bellarine Peninsula. It's relatively close to home, but I've never been there and nor has James. We didn't have a huge plan except to explore a bit, so we got in the car and drove down. When Sparrow woke up and needed a stop, we stopped at the next likely spot - which, it turned out, was a maze and puzzle and mini-golf complex. Perfect! This is not the best photo of me, but I had to include it because Sparrow is taking advantage of my lack of energy and distraction to steal the marshmallow that's next to the hot chocolate. So innocent.

Here we go, in the maze. I don't know if this is still Australia's largest timber maze. It was very similar to the one on Phillip Island, which it does have commercial links of some sort with. Like that one, I found it relatively straight-forward to solve, with only a couple of tricky bits. It made for a nice walk, and a fun exercise of map memory (which I don't get to do often enough), and a fun thing for the three of us to share.

We stopped on the bridge that runs across the middle of the maze to eat a sandwich or two. Sparrow decided that today was the day she was going to not like chicken loaf Ever Again. -sigh- There are so many foods she likes for a while, then doesn't like at all. Not that chicken loaf is exactly quality food, but it is nice for lunchboxes.

Queenscliff. I'd wanted to come out here and see this town, right at the end of the Peninsula. There's a famous music festival here and you could see some evidence that the town traded a little on its part-time fame, a certain better class of stores than you might otherwise get sprinkled in amongst the more ordinary stuff. The homewares shop had some very nifty things including a set of baboushka doll measuring cups. And there were *two* bookstores on the main street, one of which was a second-hand store tucked into an old chapel and had six different books from my "I am looking for this" list. My spending money vanished rapidly at that point.

A restaurant in the old church (the bookshop-chapel is off to the right hand side somewhere. I just liked the composition of this shot while Sparrow was exploring and watching this child and a sibling run around and chase each other.

There was a chocolate shop on the opposite corner. I got an Explosive Surprise, and the surprise turned out to be that it didn't explode and was just hazelnut on the inside. Hazelnut. James just laughed. Sparrow had no interest in the chocolate shop at all, I think because everything was in displays perfectly targeted for adults with overflowing wallets who would be willing to pay large amounts of money for tiny edibles with exotic and confusing names, and toddlers have more basic instincts than that (you could also say "Are Not Fooled"). Instead she made several attempts to get out the door and finally managed it, stopping short at the sight of these two lovely ladies and their little dog. The dog was just great. The ladies had a happy chat to us about our beautiful little boy (she's still androgynous enough that people quite happily assume she's male) and about their grandchildren while Sparrow and the dog sniffed at each other from a safe distance.

The point itself. That little bit of land across the water on the left of the photo, behind James' right, is Point Nepean, where Mum, Sparrow and I decided not to have a walk a few weeks back. The signpost has distances on it like "Portsea 6". Driving time to there would be at least three hours, the whole way around the bay. If you look carefully to James' left out on the horizon you'll see one of the superhuge cargo ships heading off - they come through here and they really are large. There's only one safe channel through the mud.

Same spot, different angle, photo of the storm clouds and the lighthouse and Sparrow and me. It was raining on the other point, but not where we were.

Time to head home. Our plan was to drive the fifteen or twenty minutes to Geelong, get mussels from the mussel boat on the old Waterfront, then drive home. Sparrow fell asleep in the first bit of the drive, so James stayed in the car with her while I ordered. We found this mussel boat the weekend before she was born and haven't made it back since. It really is atmospheric, you have a little old guy down in his boat running back and forth between camping stoves tossing mussels from a bucket into frypans and tipping the lot into little paper containers with a ladleful of hot white wine and garlic sauce. The mussels are fairly fresh from the bay and they taste simply amazing. I was going to share mine with Sparrow, but she failed to wake up so I just had to eat them all. Maybe next time.