We left Lakes Entrance at about 8 a.m. on Tuesday and travelled along the Prince’s Highway, heading to Phillip Island. As before, the drive covered all kinds of geography. We went through a lot of cattle ranching areas and some sheep farming areas. The road wasn’t very busy and John convinced me to try driving – I have to say it’s a lot easier as the driver than the passenger *lol* (laughing out loud for those who don’t know what that means). Of course, I was driving on a fairly straight road with very little traffic and only had to make a few turns on to other streets.
On the way, we saw the
Toora Wind Farm – it was pretty neat to see them up close and hear the sound of the blades whirring. There was a viewpoint on the way back down from the viewing station – unlike most of the ones at home, there was only one entrance at the bottom end and it was a tight turn even with our little car. You could see forever though.
When we made a rest stop in the middle of nowhere and also when we stopped for lunch in a small town, we noticed that the parks have natural gas public bar-b-q’s. What a neat idea. Since then we’ve noticed them in a few more parks.
We got to Phillip Island about 2 p.m. and found a nice, quiet motel in Cowes. It was very basic, but spotless and suited us perfectly. One thing we did notice was, like Justin used to tell us, there was no heating in the room. There was air conditioning but no heating unit. There were extra blankets, however, and they came in very handy after the Penguin Parade.
After finding the room, our first stop was the Koala Sanctuary – where we had an upclose and personal experience with a koala. He was roaming back and forth along the boardwalk railing and came turned around right where John was standing.
John at Koala Sanctuary
Chris at Koala Sanctuary
It was so cool to actually see a koala that close – he walked right past me and then climbed a tree. He looked like he was showing off.
In the evening, we went to the Penguin Parade.
John at the Penguin Parade
The exhibits were really neat – especially the places where you could look into the burrows and actually see penguins inside. If I ever went back again though, I would buy the Penguin Plus tickets as most of the penguins came off the beach and up in that area. Some of them did come in front of us though and they were so cute – all waddling in a group to the brush. I have a lot of respect for the rangers at the park, there were a lot of tour buses that came in time for the parade – the tourist didn’t listen to the instructions (sit down, don’t talk and no photos) and were rushing all over the place. The ranger in our area had to keep telling them to sit down and they really didn’t listen). Luckily they only waited until one or two groups had come ashore and then they raced back up the hill. When John and I went back up, you could see penguins beside their burrows alongside the boardwalk – there were two who seemed to be bickering like a couple of kids – and they were loud! I didn’t know that penguins made a variety of noises – and that they come into the bay as a raft. There was one little guy who was separated from his mates but he managed to find a group and head up to the burrows. Sorry, no pictures but I did buy some of the ones they had so I can share them when we get home. It was pretty cool out – not really cold, but very windy so we made use of the extra blankets at the motel when we got back so we could warm up.
As we’ve been doing, we were asleep early and woke up on Wednesday morning to the sound of some really noisy birds. We were on the road again by 8:30 and headed for the Melbourne area. The closer we got to the city, the more sure we were that we didn’t want to drive in it. We bought a phone card (Karen, the one you gave me didn’t work) and called Charles Hughes. He was happy to hear from us and insisted that we come to their home to visit. He gets off work about 4 so we’re heading over there soon. We found a hotel near their house but it was terrible – smoky (even in the non-smoking rooms) and not very clean. We went to a nearby gas station to ask for directions to another hotel (a nice one), and a kind man offered to lead us there as it was in the direction he was going.
We’re staying at the Dingley International Motor Inn and it is nice. Tomorrow, we are heading for Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula and the ferry to Queenscliff for the start of the Great Ocean Road Drive. We’re going to stay one night overnight along the road and then head to our timeshare at Ballarat for checkin on Friday.
You might notice that I’ve separated this posts photos into a folder called Australia – Phillip Island on the right sidebar. I thought it might be easier to locate the ones you haven’t seen that way as the main Australia category was getting pretty big.
Temperature on Monday: not sure – partly sun, partly cloud
Road sign
Koala