Our Winter Break vacation came about after doing some research into house swapping. We discovered a website called HomeExchange, where you can set up a profile to swap homes with other people around the globe, or use "points" to stay in someone's house. You get about 1,000 points for signing up ($200 a year) and setting up your profile.  |
Philip Island Cattle
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You then earn more points if you host someone in your house, called a Guest Points exchange. We hosted someone for a night during our trip to Perth earlier in the year and it went well so we decided to try it out for a longer trip. If you can work it out with another person on the site, you can swap homes for a period of time. We have described
it to others like AirBNB without the fees. On this trip, we did a combination of points and swapping, which meant other that the initial sign up fee, we didn't pay anything for accommodation on this trip! The site collects a $500 deposit when you host that you release when the trip is over and has an identity verification process and has felt secure enough to us. Our first stay was a "points" stay in a small town called San Remo, right next to Phillip Island on the East Coast of Victoria, about 2.5 hours from Melbourne. Phillip island is famous for beautiful beaches and wildlife, including Fairy Penguins, the world's smallest penguin. We spent every day outside at the beach and hiking in the bush. The water is clear and blue, but quite cold most of the time. 
We did manage one day of very warm weather and swimming. We also finally got to photograph an Echidna!
We spent 3 days in Melbourne for Christmas, then moved on to our 2nd HomeExchange stay, a swap with an Australian family of 3. We stayed in
their quiet, tranquil home in the Dandendong Ranges, about an hour NE of Melbourne, and they stayed in our apartment in Singapore. The weather was gorgeous for us, so we got to spend every day outside, usually in the surrounding forests or at one of the many amazing wineries in the Yarra Valley.
One of our favorites was TarraWarra, which makes a delicious Pinot Rose.
We also spent a lot of time at wonderfully designed playgrounds, much to Cata's delight. We even found a stand of redwood trees.
One of our favorite parts of visiting Australia is trying to spot wildlife among the the beautiful natural and agricultural landscapes. Mostly we find a lot of birds, but this wallaby and her joey made it easy by wandering through the back yard of our guest house.

While looking for penguins on Philip Island we unexpectedly came across this nesting colony of terns and ended up spending quite a bit of time engrossed in the chaotic scene. There were thousands of squawking birds, puffy chicks, and adults flying out to sea and returning with little fish to feed to the others.

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Cape Barren Goose |
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Straw-necked Ibis |
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Australasian Swamphen |
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New Holland Honeyeater |
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Cuckoo chick getting a meal from a much smaller adult bird.
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Cormorant Chick
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Kookaburra |
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Spotted Pardalote |
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Eastern Rosella
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Tawny Frogmouth
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Crimson Rosella
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Eastern Yellow Robin
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Galah |
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White-faced Heron
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Silvereye
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Superb Fairy-wren |