Day 7 - Arthurs Seat and Phillip Island

Day 7 - Phillip Island
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

debra took the day off today to spend with us. we had decided that tonight was going to be penguin parade night at phillip island, so we figured that we would take a drive up around phillip bay towards the mornington peninsula.

we started off in st. Kilda and had a gigantic breakfast at a nice little restaurant in the area. st Kilda looks like a pretty nice place, and is filled with restaurants and backpacker joints as well, so it is a fairly common tourist area. as a result, debra told us a story about how, when she was deciding where to live, and mentioned st. Kilda, someone had warned her that only the “dredges of society” lived in st. Kilda. clearly, there is some sort of stigma attached to the place to the locals.

so we drove down the coast, stopping for pictures in a scenic location, and continued on to a place called arthur’s seat. we stopped, and considered talking the ski lift up the hill to the scenic viewpoint, and eventually decided against it, due to time constraints, and the fact that it just didn’t seem worth it (the cheap accountants that we are). Good choice though, as we probably drove for another 5 minutes up the hill, to the top, where the ski lift ended. we took a few pictures, not including the crappy “arthurs seat”, which wasn’t even really worth a digital shot, and had some crappy coffee from the crappy restaurant with crappy service (we had to get our coffee from the BACK of the restaurant, where the dumpsters were – maybe its because we are “coloureds” ). after this, it was a race back to Melbourne.

Linda and I hastily grabbed our stuff together, got to the pick up location, grabbed some sandwiches for the road, and onto the bus. great. made it! then we realized that we had taken my jacket out of our day bag. big mistake. we had been warned of the cold weather on the island. looks like I’d have to either suck it up in the cold, or buy some crappy gift shop jacket when we got there. the ride there was essentially the same ride that we took in the afternoon, along the same road. we pretty much slept through the whole thing, apart from the tour bus driver rambling on and on about nothing. at one point, he rambled on and on for 5 minutes about Melbourne traffic.

we got there, and took the back roads into towards the penguin viewing area, and saw some great scenery, and even a wallaby or two! stepping off the bus for a quick shot, we quickly realized just how cold it would be once it got dark. looks like I would definitely have to buy that jacket!

though we were warned about the “no photos” policy at the penguin parade, we were still disappointed. no flash photography would have been OK with me, but no photography at all was pretty disappointing. of course, they did have a wide array of souvenir postcards for purchase, as well as some high quality photos that they had taken. GRRR. so we ended up buying a “glow in the dark” blanket that doesn’t glow in the dark, and that kept me relatively warm during the penguin parade.

a quick overview of the penguin parade for those of you who don’t know. penguins reside in some of the southern waters, and so, this is the only place where this “parade” occurs in Australia. basically, the penguins come out of the4 water after sun down, to head to their burrows for the night, and to feed their young, who have been waiting all day for them to come back. so they come onto the beach, try to figure out if there are any predators, and it its safe, make a dash for their burrows. because penguins aren’t exactly fast on their feet, they rely on strength in numbers. so you won’t see too many penguins running off onto the beach by themselves. in fact, if one penguin that gets to the beach gets scared and makes a dash back for the ocean, the rest of them follow!

I do have to say, that it was worth the price of admission, given hat you really cant see something like this in too many places in the world, and the fact that they let you get right up to the penguins (without completely disturbing their patterns)..just still disappointed in the no pictures thing.

we spent most of our time observing two penguins, whom we nicknamed pinky and the brain. these two were some of the first to leave the water and head for the beach, but for some odd reason, part way through their journey, they must have gotten lost or scared. because they just kind of stood around near one of the platforms we were on, looking around, seemingly confused. we would walk away for a bit, and then go back to them, and they would still be there. stupid penguins…that’s how you get yourself killed! anyways, we spent so much time watching the penguins, that we actually had to run for our bus, which was scheduled to leave at 10:30 SHARP. the driver was doing a final headcount when we got there, and were definitely “the last team to arrive”….

we passed out on the drive home from another day well spent.