2001 Day 7 - Phillip Island

Friday 7 December 2000, Melbourne - Nearly all of today was spent on a Gray Line tour. None of the pics you see in this section are mine - I have no access to a scanner, and simply looked for good quality representative ones on Google.

• 12:20 - Picked up from hotel by coach


• 12:50 - Arrived in city by roundabout route


• 13:30 - Left Melbourne - went down St Kilda Road (this road is simply phenomenal - two roadways each direction each of two lanes, a big multi-tramway in the middle, and median strips between each, and tree-lined on both sides - it is huge!) and drove down the bayside suburbs with a full commentary.


• 15:15 - After going somewhat inland, our first stop - Warrook Farm. Apparently it's too wet for the sheep, but there's plenty of kangaroos and wombats (for those of you who think everywhere in Australia has them, it's in fact quite rare to see them without going to a place like this).


• 16:15 - After a considerable drive (including a causeway), we got to Phillip Island's Koala Conservation Park and got to see real life koalas as well as some information displays.


• 17:00 - Went to Cowes (the main town of Phillip Island) and, despite the tour guide's recommendations of expensive restaurants, bought a yiro souvlaki at a local fish & chips shop for $5.50, and loved it. I agree with the person who said Cowes is blatantly cashing in on the tourists rather than providing a meaningful gateway to the island, but even so, it was still nice :) I hung around some fishermen and got to meet a couple of other tourists, including Yoko, from Japan, and Joe, from Italy. I'm still stunned at the lack of Australians on the tours I've been on.


• 19:00 - Seal Rocks, and I wasn't going to pay the $10.50 entry fee, so hung around the free area (shop, binoculars, beach areas). Bought a few soft toys too :) (EDIT 2002 - This centre was destroyed by a tornado 8 months after my visit.)


• 20:00 - Penguin Parade information centre - saw some of the computerised displays and shops - the centre was busier than some shopping centres I've seen given the time and day.


• 20:51 - The penguin parade itself. A single shout and everyone was generally heading towards the seated area, but I'd been tipped off to check the boardwalk instead.
  The penguins are like nothing I've ever seen. They're about 30cm high and they kind of waddle like a duck, and they're just adorably cute :) Basically they all run up from the water onto the beach at sunset in a huge group every night, then once onshore, preen themselves and, in smaller groups, run up to their burrows in the hills surrounding the beach where the chicks are waiting for their nightly feed. The viewing area is floodlit so you can see them pretty easily.


• 22:00 - It's all over (the penguins haven't stopped running up, but the floodlights are switched off and the boardwalk is closed by the rangers). I should note that any photography or video is banned due to the effect that flashes have on the penguins, however I was easily able to obtain professionally done photos of them taken some years ago relatively easily.

Searching for "phillip island penguin parade pictures" in Google will return a number of links you can look at, and you can look at the official site. This so far has definitely been the highlight of my little tour, alongside the Wayward tour I took on Day 4.