Phillip Island

On Monday morning we rented a car in order to drive to Phillip Island, just south of the Mornington peninsula, an approx. 2 hours drive from Melbourne. It was Andi's first drive on the “wrong” side (left side) of the road and he was pretty nervous. Main difficulties were roundabouts (go clockwise), highways (up to 5 lanes, enter/exit left, overtake on both sides), and right turns within Melbourne (wait on the far left instead of in the middle, then turn right). As usual we saved some money by using free maps for our navigation system and it kept sending us to tollways which we didn't want to use. So Julia had to navigate using a map with few details! ;-) The landscape on our way was scenic, pretty much like in Ireland (Julia reminds this of Rosamunde Pilcher movies), but with Eucalyptus trees. Finally, we (and a new laptop, as the old one couldn't be repaired) arrived safely in Cowes.

Cowes is one of the three towns on Phillip Island and is home of the Chill House, our hostel of choice. Although looking creepy from outside, it proved to be a lovely and well equipped (pool table, DVDs, small sand beach, complimentary breakfast) place from inside. The hostel's mum welcomed us with a letter, as she wasn't around at that time. First we visited the Koala conservation center and took close-up pictures of Koalas – mostly sleeping – from tree-top boardwalks. During a short visit at the Nobbies (rocks in front of Phillip Island) we were able to see seals and incredible waves. Finally, we went to visit the main attraction on the island: The penguin parade. We were able to see about 300 cute little penguins, just about 30cm high, walking up the hills from the beach to their burrows. This means a distance of up to 1km. Penguins wait in the sea until it is dark, then form groups of about 20 and start walking. The reason is that it's less likely for them to be caught by a bird of pray. It was freezing cold outside, but we still waited for the last penguin to get out of the water. So did the penguins which stayed at home: They were waiting in front of the burrows. When their friends arrived, they made a lot of noise. Penguins communicate with each other at land, because in the sea they don't have time for that. In the evening Andi was very tired because of the exhausting left-driving and so we fell asleep early.