April 5 – Phillip Island Tour

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Today we are still in Melbourne. The excursion today is to visit a popular destination called Phillip Island. The pickup time is not until about Noon, so we have the morning to ourselves. That meant firstly that we slept in. Then David walked over to the nearest Westpac Bank to replenish our Australian cash. Then we went down to the hotel brunch and had a very big meal about 10:00. This included bacon & eggs, waffles, hashed browns, fruit, pastry, porridge, juice, tea, and probably a few more things. It filled us up like on a cruise ship, so we were set for quite a while. Back in the room, we packed clothes in preparation for checking out the next morning. We will be leaving the hotel and going on a 2-day road trip, so much of the stuff is not needed until we return on Monday night. Anyway, we split up the stuff between what was needed that day, what we needed on the road trip, and what we wouldn’t need again until we returned home. This is going to make our next morning MUCH easier to deal with. The shuttle picked us up only a few minutes late but drove us around town to make pickups in other places too. This was Saturday and the shopping areas were packed with people. One new store was opening and there was a line literally twice the length of the city block. Anyway, it occurred to us that if we had selected a hotel more in this part of town, there were have been an abundance of restaurants, shops, etc. Our hotel (Crown Promenade) was an upgrade because the intended hotel was booked full, but this placed us in a casino environment which catered to the more well-to-do and did not have much “ordinary stuff” in the immediate area. So – lesson learned about upgrades. But the hotel is certainly First Class and has an abundance of posh and bling. Anyway, we were delivered to Federation Square where we boarded the real bus and it was pretty much full. We headed out of town and the driver gave us some of the same city highlight facts that we had heard the day before – at least they were consistent. For instance, the street widths are 99 feet. Why? - because that was the turning radius for a team of 6 horses pulling a wagon when the town was laid out. That is why their streets are still so broad today. Our first stop was at the Maru Koala & Animal Park. We had not seen an Australia animal in all 4 weeks so far, but now we have seen them twice in few days. But these were bigger, more active, and the crowd was much smaller. We saw Koalas (eating and moving around a little), wallabies and kangaroos, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, many kinds of birds, but we also saw sheep. All the exotic ones were interesting and cute, but the sheep was actually seen during a sheep shearing demonstration. It was quite surprising how they did it and how quickly they did it. The “cutter” was able to shear all the wool off in a single piece that eventually spread out as large as a rug. David has some of it (and the kangaroos) on video and lots of photos of all the animals. Then we boarded the bus again and were headed for Philip Island. Firstly, whilst we want to be politically correct whenever possible, sometime it goes a little too far. The penguins used to be called Fairy Penguins, but now they are called Little Penguins. One would certainly not want to hurt their feelings by calling them fairies! We drove past the viewing location because we were much too early. Little Penguins only come out of the sea after dark and this was about 4:30. So we drove on to a place called the Nobbies. Along the way we periodically saw small wallabies on the side of the road, some grey geese, and something else which apparently resembled a hedgehog (that was on the other side of the bus). The Nobbies are a rock formation at the end of the island (Phillip Island measures 9 kilometers wide and 26 kilometers) with a great view. There are also little wooden boxes built into the hillside which are little homes for the Little Penguins. We had about 15 minutes to walk around and see the sights (there actually appeared to be one penguin already in one of the boxes, but David wasn’t sure it was real and not just a stuffed animal to excite the visitors). Back on the bus, we drove into the town of Cowes about 5:30. This is where time had been allocated to get ourselves some dinner. We went to the recommended nearby Italian restaurant and we split a very good Bar-b-Que chicken pizza. We hadn’t eaten a lunch, although we did get a snack at the Koala Place, so we were hungry and it was very tasty. Then David walked up the hill to a grocery store and bought a couple of bottles of water (we had bought some in Sydney but it was almost gone). He also got a couple of pastries for our next morning breakfast and a bottle of orange juice. So we are set and back on the bus by the agreed time of 7:00. The plan had been to arrive prior to the time the penguins came out of the sea the night before (7:45). We were a few minutes ahead of that, but we actually had to rush along a lengthy boardwalk in near darkness to get to the viewing area by 7:45. Frankly we would not want to have sat there a long time before because it was kind of chilly and very windy, but a few minutes earlier would have eliminated the need to dash to the beach. We had been told very clearly that NO PHOTOS were allowed of the penguins or anywhere on the boardwalk. The reality is that it was so dark that it would have been nearly impossible to get a decent photo anyway. They had a few small lights along the boardwalk to keep you on the path, and a couple of weak spotlights to provide a small amount of light, but there was nowhere near enough light for a photo. That being said, we could indeed see the little fellows leaving the sea. They would kind of surf their way to shore in a bunch, and then would waddle up toward the sand dune. Before they got there something would scare them and they would scurry back into the water and start the process all over again. This process repeats in multiple “bunches” (maybe they are called a colony) and with various degrees of success. Eventually some of them made it to the dunes and disappeared into the brush. Others retreated and joined together again to repeat the attempt. It was very amusing and everyone was cheering them onward and offering words of encouragement, all of which probably scared them back in to the sea. Oh well. There were also a lot of sea gulls floating on the winds, just barely out of our grasp. They could not have been more than a few feet over our heads and would pretty much hover above, or even beside the crowds. One of the benefits of not arriving too early is that many people must have been quite cold and they departed after the first little penguins made it to shore. So our crowd rapidly diminished and help in providing lines of sight. There were easily a 1000 people there, although a clear count was beyond our ability to see them all. Anyway, all these people paid a fee to get in to see the penguins which are basically performing a normal event and are being exploited by the management. However the money is said to be used to support and care for the penguins, so maybe it’s not too much exploitation afterall. After we watched for a while and encouraged multiple groups to reach their goal, we walked along the boardwalk back to the main center. Along the way we were able every so often to see some of the penguins in the brush beside the boardwalk. It was quite interesting and we enjoyed it despite being a bit chilled (someone like Ruth would have needed a winter coat). J We had very good weather all day, so this was not too big a problem for us. We still had some time to shop in the gift shop and we got a couple of things there too. But we were getting tired and we got back on the bus.
The ride back to Melbourne was about 2 hours (that’s pretty much what it had taken to go the opposite direction early in the day) and many people dozed off for a nap. Happily the tour included being dropped off at our hotel and we were the 3^rd of 15 drops, so we got back to the hotel about 11:00. Back in the room we did not have time to write the blog that night, so that is why it is late.

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