Melbourne

On our first day in Melbourne, we headed for the Great Ocean Road. This is where I must introduce the animal that left the deepest and most enduring impression on me there: the fly. The flies along the Great Ocean Road were everywhere. There was no escaping them. Wave a hand while walking and you were practically guaranteed to hit several. In theory, a creature as small as a fly should be difficult to spot outdoors from three meters away. Not here. They announced themselves freely. Many visitors simply wore masks, because opening one’s mouth to speak was an exceptionally dangerous act. One careless moment and you might receive an unexpected serving of fresh protein.

I do not know how much of the Great Ocean Road had this problem, but every attraction we visited did. My guess was that the damp coastal environment encouraged the flies, while the apparent lack of anyone controlling them allowed matters to reach this point. I had encountered something similar at Alcatraz near San Francisco, though this felt even worse to me. I would strongly recommend bringing a mask. Insect repellent did not seem particularly useful; there were simply too many flies for it to stop them all, and one could always find a few with no regard for their own survival. Walk carefully as well. Without glasses, a fly might go directly into your eye. One flew straight into my glasses.

Setting aside this spectacularly poor visitor experience, the Great Ocean Road did offer some fine scenery.

Our first stop was the Twelve Apostles. A photograph of this place appeared on the cover of an English textbook published by People’s Education Press in China, so visitors could often be seen holding the book in one hand and a camera in the other, lining up its cover with the landscape behind it. The result: it really was identical. What intrigued me most was where they had found those textbooks. Surely they had not carried them all the way from China? Then again, if they had come after reading a Xiaohongshu guide, perhaps they really had.

The coastal road was genuinely beautiful. Yet when I look at it now, my first thought is still: this is exactly the sort of environment in which flies would thrive.

We stopped at a restaurant more or less at random. Outside it, we happened upon several lively birds. They showed no fear of people whatsoever; presumably they had long since grown accustomed to us.

We then reached Split Point Lighthouse. We were told that excessive visitor numbers during the peak season had led to the site being closed, so all we could do was photograph it from a distance.

Finally, as the journey was nearly over, we arrived at the journey’s beginning. Had we spent the whole day doing the Great Ocean Road backward?

That concluded the first day. Back at the hotel, I went straight for the shower. After a full day among the flies, those clothes were not going anywhere near me again.

On the second day, we began with the Puffing Billy Railway, one of Melbourne’s best-known attractions. How should I put this? Judged purely as transportation, it was ancient, rough, and slow enough that few people would choose to rely on it. Judged as a classic heritage railway, however, perhaps age only makes it more desirable.

The ride itself was excellent. As the photograph above shows, when we rode it, passengers could sit along the edge of the carriage and extend their legs through the railings. There was obviously room for only so many people to do this in each carriage; roughly half had to sit inside. Whether you secured one of those places depended on when you boarded, or whether someone later offered to trade seats. The people in our carriage were considerate. No one occupied the prized edge for the entire journey of more than an hour without giving anyone else a turn.

Next came Maru Koala and Animal Park. As the name suggests, its defining feature was the chance to observe koalas at close range. Seeing them draped lazily over the branches settled the matter: they really are professional tree-dwelling idlers.

The park contained plenty of other animals as well. We encountered a peacock displaying its tail. My traveling companion put the phenomenon neatly: no matter how many times you have seen it, you still want to take another photograph.

The park also had a large contingent of Australia’s homegrown boxers: kangaroos, in several different varieties.

Capturing a large one and a small one in the same frame was no easy matter either.

That evening, we went to the Phillip Island Penguin Parade. “Penguins everywhere” came racing ashore from the sea. The quotation marks matter: there were plenty of penguins, but not quite enough to cover the landscape. I had already visited Antarctica and seen what penguins truly everywhere looked like. Compared with that, this was on an entirely different scale. The other people in our group were thrilled, probably because it was their first time seeing wild penguins. My own reaction was inevitably more subdued. I had, after all, already weathered rather larger seas—and larger crowds of penguins.

The photographs below were taken nearby during the day. When the penguins actually returned at night, it was too dark for my photographs to turn out well. Flash photography was understandably not allowed, so I captured nothing worth showing here.

And with that, our time in Melbourne came to a successful close.