- \n
- 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.\n
- The journey to Phillip Island was a bit of a hassle:\n
- \n
- First leg (train)<\/b>: 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.\n
- Second leg (coach)<\/b>: 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…\n
- Third leg (coach)<\/b>: 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.\n
- Fourth leg (minibus)<\/b>: 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.<\/ul>\n
- Once at Cowes in Phillip Island, all was good. The hostel (Amaroo Park<\/a>) was lovely and the views from the beach in Cowes were, well, like this:\n
![\"Beach](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/126\/354612482_5c1569de48_m.jpg\" "\\"Beach")
<\/a> ![\"Pier](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/126\/354612394_f44b0102c2_m.jpg\" "\\"Pier")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Me](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/129\/354612666_0c413a9642_m.jpg\" "\\"Me")
<\/a> ![\"Squage](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/151\/354612766_d73eae5907_m.jpg\" "\\"Squage")
<\/a><\/p>\n- 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:\n
![\"Folks](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/129\/354613025_662157826f_m.jpg\" "\\"Folks")
<\/a> ![\"Sunset](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/148\/354612854_b081a59df3_m.jpg\" "\\"Sunset")
<\/a><\/p>\n- An early night later and that was the end of the first day.\n<\/ul>\n
Thursday 11th January: Phillip Island<\/b><\/p>\n
- \n
- 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<\/strike> really chirpy and after some free brekkie (did I mention Amaroo Park<\/a> was lovely?) hired a bike from the hostel and set off in search of the Koala Conservation Centre, and Woolamai Cape area.\n- 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<\/i>) 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.\n
- The Koala Conservation Centre<\/a> 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):\n
![\"I](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/151\/354613647_097d4723a4_m.jpg\" "\\"I")
<\/a> ![\"My](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/154\/354613504_0b3c42ec0d_m.jpg\" "\\"My")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"KOALA!\"](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/147\/354613089_94cf02f322_m.jpg\" "\\"KOALA!\\"")
<\/a> ![\"I](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/148\/354613179_8116aab842_m.jpg\" "\\"I")
<\/a><\/p>\nCute, huh?<\/p>\n
- 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:\n
![\"Stock](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/128\/354614108_14e4bc99be_m.jpg\" "\\"Stock")
<\/a> ![\"Biiiig](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/123\/354613995_2efe44e955_m.jpg\" "\\"Biiiig")
<\/a><\/p>\nAs I say, Pat was a bit tired, but you’d never<\/i> guess from this:<\/p>\n
![\"Knackered](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/125\/354614082_85802c1eb4_m.jpg\" "\\"Knackered")
<\/a>
\n(And you should’ve seen him on returning to the hostel…)<\/p>\n- 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<\/a>!\n
- 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 *\n
- 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.\n
- It looked a bit like this:\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/01\/missingimage.GIF\")
<\/p>\nAhem.<\/p>\n
Sadly they didn’t allow cameras. This is as good as it got:<\/p>\n
- 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<\/i>) 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.\n
- Second leg (coach)<\/b>: 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…\n
- First leg (train)<\/b>: 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.\n
![\"Penguin](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/128\/354614149_029a0b21bf_m.jpg\" "\\"Penguin")
<\/a><\/p>\n