Phillip Island Round 2

From the previous day, we were so exhausted that we both crashed immediately. We had to wake up at 7 am to move our car because parking was either free if we found a spot overnight or 37 a night through the hotel. It was a hard choice to take 5 minutes finding a spot and walking back the previous day. The sad part was waking up early, which we did and then got back to the hotel and got ready. Megan showered first so she could get her makeup and everything done and got a nasty surprise when the glass covering the light on the ceiling in the bathroom came crashing to the floor and shattered all over. Luckily she wasn't hurt somehow even though she felt it fly past her face.

We got the front desk to send someone to clean it up, finished packing our bags and loaded up the car. We then drove downtown to run a few errands because we needed a 3 prong us to australia converter (which is powering this laptop now) and we needed to activate our vodafone modem that Kitt lent us so we can have internet while we are in australia. We grabbed a delicious breakfast baguette sandwich and then started the 2 hour drive to Phillip Island which had 3 different nature parks we wanted to see. Luckily you can get a combo admission deal which we did. The first park we headed out to was the working farm. Built in the early 1800s, it has been restored to its original glory and is fully working now. We got a sweet lunch, took a horse carriage ride and got to pet some baby animals. We watched a blacksmith make horse shoes and they had a demo of border collies rounding up sheep and turkeys.


Next on the way was a koala sanctuary. Koalas had been declining in numbers so they put together this sanctuary and set up a few different habitats to breed the koalas. We walked along an elevated boardwalk that has us a few feet away from two sets of mothers and babies. Megan loves baby animals.

The last park is a penguin conservatory and we had paid for the ULTIMATe experience of watching the little penguins (max 1 foot tall) walk in from hunting to their dens. Only problem was it started at dusk so we had some time to kill and drove to the peninsula of the island and took in the beautiful coastline before heading back to the penguin conservatory. Megan had wisely upgraded us to a private tour with a ranger and night vision goggles at a private beach. There were 1500 "riff raff" at the normal beach that we didn't have to deal with.

The ranger gave us headsets so we could hear him through his microphone and the night vision monocle. We got waterproof pants and jackets to keep us warm and then headed out to the beach. We set up shop near the paths they took to their dens (you can tell by their foot prints) and waited. Soon a few "rafts", a collaboration of the penguins to all wash a shore together began climbing up the sand. It was exciting to watch them in some cases pass a few feet from us as they ran to their dens. After 30 minutes or so, we started the kilometer walk back to the main conservancy building. Since the area is closed to cars after night, we saw tons of penguins along the way and had to stop multiple times to let them cross the path in front of us. We also got to see some babies waiting for food from their parents.

By the time this wrapped up, it was 10:30 pm. We started the ridiculously painful drive to the great ocean drive which is basically australia's route 1. It was a 5 hour drive through dark windy roads. I took the first 2 hours before tagging Megan in and passing out for 2 hours. Then I took the last hour. We were both tired and stopped a few times to get red bull and other caffeine. I finally had to sub out for the last 15 minutes for Megan to be a rock star and get us to the hotel. Along the way, she pulled a Steffi and hunted the crap out of a bunny that jumped in front of the car. We finally got in at 3 am and found our room with the key prepped for us. It was the most amazing best western I have ever been to. Sadly we were only in it for 6 hours while we slept. Once again we were both so exhausted we were out in seconds.