Saturday 21st January - Phillip Island and Melbourne

Yesterday we travelled to Phillip Island - famous for its nightly penguin parade. We left mount Gambier and decided to take the ferry over to sorrento and then drive around to phillip island (which is connected to the mainland by a bridge). We chose this route over going through the centre of Melbourne so as to avoid the toll roads and the traffic congestion. The ferry ride was great apart fromt he screaming kids sat behind us....well maybe they werent quite sitting, more climbing over all the chairs, kicking the ferry windows whilst the mother sat on her phone. We seem to have attracted these kinds of kids this holiday. When we got to Phillip Island it was too early to check in so we drove 10  minutes up to 'churchill island' which was where the first european settlement began in victoria. It is a working farm but the animals looked a little bit sad all locked up in their pens. There wasnt much to see and it was a little disappointing and they didnt have half of the animals the farm map claimed to have had. We drove over to the koala conservation park. Now this was good fun. There are 36 koalas in a woodland...They arent truely wild because they are fed eucalyptus leaves daily but they arent couped up in a pen. They have lots of room to  move freely and it was good fun trying to spot them through the trees. They dont do much but they are so cute! One of the koalas had a little baby fast asleep on her back. I wanted to take one home but Gaz wouldnt let me. After the koala walk we went back to the accommodation and had some lunch in the cafe next door. We stayed in 'the island' a new hostel that hasnt long been built - but we had private rooms with our own bathroom. It wasnt too bad in there...the bed was very comfy and had a flat screen tv and was clean enough. In the evening we drove to the other side of the island. We took a few pics of the grand prix track purposely for Gazs parents as they may come here one day to watch the motor GP. It was on route to the penguine parade so carried on the drive but arrived very early for the parade - instead we drove to 'nobbies centre' which was a very bad tourist trap. There wasnt much here apart from some seals (which you couldnt see unless you paid to use binoculars) a very large gift shop and a cafe. Lots of tour groups had stopped off her pre penguin parade.

I had done lots of research into the parade. All the reviews i said repeated 2 things - 1. its very cold and 2. pay the extra and get the penguine plus tickets. This is the second most popular tourist attraction in australia. It attracts thousands of people each night who are all squished onto large stands to watch the penguins waddle up the beach to their burrows. The penguin plus allows 190 people onto their own private viewing platform. Our platform is where 70% of the penguines walk onto the shore after a long days fishing. It is breeding season so even more penguins travel to shore. We sat 3 rows back and were an hour and a half early...so waited and waited. There wa sa woman sat in front of us with her son and daughter...she turned and started asking where we were from. Gaz an di mentioned we were living in hervey bay. She asked what we do ...as i hate saying IM A DENTIST i just said 'i work in a dental clinic in hervey bay'...her next question was....oh are you a hygienist? this is not an uncommmon question that i get...so i said no i was a dentist and she then went on to ask how much i earn and how much are university fees etc....her daughter was a fourth year medic and i think the mother was quite competitive. We carried on waiting for the penguins, there was a family in front with 2 young boys who were VERY annoying and loved to show off to everyone. The penguins started approaching the beach at 9.15pm...at this point the boys got completely in our way and for a fe wminutes we couldnt see much. Eventually they moved and it was fine. The penguins were AMAZING! they are little penguins - they only grow to 33cm. SOOOOO CUTE! they come ashore after a day finding food and then waddle back to their burrows to feed their partner and their chick. he chicks come out of the burrow when it is dark to greet their partner. The penguins arrive in 'rafts' (a group of penguins) and i was expecting to only see 10-20 but no, how wrong was i? they came in their hundreds! the whole thing lasted over an hour. It was great! And so lovely to see them totting down a sand hill, to pick up too much speed, over balance and fall face first into the sand. It was adorable! I wanted to take a penguin home....again, gaz said no. We had our own privat eboardwalk being penguin plus so we got to walk all the way up the beach and through the sand dunes to see the penguins getting to their burrow. It was the best part of the trip so far and i cant explain just how amazing it was to see these penguins arriving on shore, totally un interested by the human presence...brave little penguins!

After a night on Phillip island, we have today arrived in melbourne. As i write the blog mum and da dhave knocked to go for a chinese in china town...i will continue the post tomorrow!