So, Pat and I went to Phillip Island for a couple of days.

And we couldn’t’ve picked a better time either – hot, sunny and with just enough of a breeze to prevent it from being ‘orrible. Awesome.

What did we get up to? Well, given I’ve not done this for a while I’m thinking a day-by-day approach could be adopted (not only because we were only there from Wednesday PM to this morning)…

Wednesday 10th January: Melbourne -> Phillip Island

• After waking up too early (well, for someone who’d spent the whole day beforehand recovering from the Neighbours night), Pat stumbled out of the hostel and to Southern Cross train station, ready for a couple of days by himself after traveling with people for over 2 months.
• The journey to Phillip Island was a bit of a hassle:
  • First leg (train): Pat spent an hour holding onto his rather heavy rucksack (and Obligatory Coles Green Shopping Bag (every traveler has at least one)) to prevent them smashing into commuters on a rather packed train.
  • Second leg (coach): supposedly this was to get to Phillip Island, but after an hour everyone got off the coach and onto another (at that point empty) one. Why? Well, we’re not sure. The coaches seems identical. I’m suspecting they were coming up to a motorway and had just noticed a Speed-style device under one of the wheels. Pat holds the dull view that the second coach may’ve been bigger. No imagination…
  • Third leg (coach): Yep, this was supposed to get to Phillip Island, right? Nope. A swap into a minibus, which couldn’t fit everyone in – taxis were called… class.
  • Fourth leg (minibus): This was rather, uh, warm, cramped and full of flies. Still, this did at least get us to the destination, which was something of a surprising bonus at this point.
• Once at Cowes in Phillip Island, all was good. The hostel (Amaroo Park) was lovely and the views from the beach in Cowes were, well, like this:

  

  

• Pat spent most of the afternoon on the beach, getting a bur-er, nice tan, before grabbing some dinner at a seafront restaurant and going back to the beach to enjoy the sunset:

  

• An early night later and that was the end of the first day.

Thursday 11th January: Phillip Island

• Pat woke up nice and early, feeling quite tired from lack of sleep due to the massive snore fest going on in his rather small 4 bed dorm really chirpy and after some free brekkie (did I mention Amaroo Park was lovely?) hired a bike from the hostel and set off in search of the Koala Conservation Centre, and Woolamai Cape area.
• He soon realised he was massively unfit (By which he means “realised it was massively hot and easy to get tired in those sort of circumstances”) – Pat) but also how much he enjoys cycling (particularly the awesome feeling of freewheeling downhill after slogging it uphill)… methinks he’s going to try and spend the money he’ll not have anymore on a bike when he gets back home.
• The Koala Conservation Centre was pretty cool – you got to get really close to Koalas as they rested in the trees (although personally I decided to stay safe in Pat’s bag – Koalas have claws that I don’t want to get to know):

  

  

  Cute, huh?

• After that, Pat went on another big cycle, eventually reaching Woolamai Cape (in a somewhat tired state) to take in the views of the surf beach:

  

  As I say, Pat was a bit tired, but you’d never guess from this:

  
  (And you should’ve seen him on returning to the hostel…)

• After cycling back to the hostel, Pat had a much needed shower, headed out for some grub and got in a taxi to see Phillip Island’s biggest attraction: the Penguin Parade!
• In the taxi were a couple of cousins (one from Toronto, one from Melbourne) who were a good laff – Pat spent most of the journey talking with them about why British travelers are obsessed with the Neighbours night. I could’ve ended that discussion with two words: Steph Scully *
• Watching the Penguins was a lovely experience for Pat… they wandered up onto the beach in groups (to give themselves a feeling of safety against predatory birds and the 200-odd humans watching), then waddled past the crowd of people watching in awe and up into their burrows in the tall grass of the beach banks.
• It looked a bit like this:

  

  Ahem.

  Sadly they didn’t allow cameras. This is as good as it got:

  

• After sitting and watching the penguins for almost an hour, Pat and the other guys grabbed a cab back to the hostel.
• Pat had another early night – this time rather pleased that he was the only one in the 4 bed dorm.

* Note to Pat’s mate Dave Smith: I’m afraid she’s just called me and told me that she’s not going to be your wife. And neither is that Carla Bonner who you keep on about.

Friday 12th January: Phillip Island -> Melbourne

• Pat spent the morning chilling out by the beach, before grabbing a coach (which only swapped once and didn’t involve flies, crampness or any need for trains) back to Melbourne.
• I then dragged him to an Internet Cafe. Ha ha!
• Tonight we’re doing… er… no idea. But we’re doing it soon (Pat keeps tapping his watch so I guess he’s ready to do whatever it is)… so I’d best say toodles.

Before that though, just a bit of advice: if you ever happen to go to Phillip Island, make sure you hire a car:

Public transport’s none existent, taxis are too expensive and the biking thing’s not really that practical if you want to bring anything around with you (e.g. beach stuff, picnics, drinks etc). Pat’s yet to see the majority of the island – and if he can convince someone else to hire a car with him, he’s going to go back and have a proper look around.

Righty, that’s enough from me – toodles for now and speak to you in Sydney!

Squage