Thursday, February 18 – Phillip Island, the Bass Coast ….and Dinner with Friends in Melbourne

We headed through some attractive coastal scenery this morning, between Inverloch, Cape Paterson, then inland to the old coal mining town of Wonthaggi, and then back to the shore and on through Kilcunda, and San Remo onto Phillip Island. There were beautiful beaches and craggy rocks, and inland rolling pastures and grazing cattle, sheep, and horses. Phillip Island is just 90 minutes south-east of Melbourne. The first few towns such as Cowes and San Remo, were holiday towns with the usual attractions one finds in beachside resorts. The northwest corner though was much more rugged and wild and absolutely fabulous.

The first thing we did was to go and see the Koala Conservation Centre. The landscape in the Park is quite natural and we were able to walk along stilted boardwalks and come face to face with the laziest, sweetest, animals imaginable. Then we went for a walk through the parkland and saw wallabies and some beautiful birds. You can see from the pictures how amazing the koalas are. We read some information in the centre about the breeding and birthing process. The babies are tiny, about 2 cm long and weigh about half a gram – tiny!!! The newborn “Joey” keeps its head in its mummy’s pouch for about 6 months before it becomes strong enough to venture out. The mother usually leaves the Joey at about 10 months.  Do you think they are sleepy? Well, they need to sleep about 20 hours a day which slows down their metabolism so that they can survive on the eucalyptus leaves. Sort of like the eagles, although I must say, the koalas are more inactive than the eagles!!  The wallabies too are lovely, but not as adorable as the fluffy koalas. We saw some neat birds including these parrots. All in all, a lovely couple of hours.

Our visit to the koalas was juxtaposed with our next stop, the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit: world superbikes, hot laps, go-karts, and V8 super cars. The race circuit has been operating annually since 1928 at first over closed public roads. We watched some of the motorbikes practising. I have watched this sort of thing on television, but nothing prepared me for the actual speed of the bikes. They literally “flashed” past!! I looked it up and the fastest bikes get up to a speed of  344 Kph . The bikes corner at an angle of 64 degrees, literally just skimming the ground. So frightening but totally thrilling all at the same time.

Then we moved on to Point Grant and the Nobbies Centre on the western tip of the Island. Whereas the rest of the island may have resembled PEI in serenity, this point resembled the ruggedness of Newfoundland.  We trekked out around the point on the board walk and saw little boxes placed on the cliff. We looked inside and there were Little Penguins. Apparently they go inside the boxes to molt after they have bred. Don't know if you can see one inside the box in this picture, but look hard!

So with our hearts brimming over with love for all the animals we had seen we headed off the island and drove up to St. Kilda’s in the suburbs of Melbourne – about an hour and a half. We met our friends from Uxbridge, Diane and Terry who are out here staying with their son since before Christmas;  had a lovely walk out the pier…where we saw more Little Penguins hiding in the rocks, the golden sunset, and the multitude of yachts glistening in the sinking sun; then found a restaurant for dinner.  After dinner we made our way to our hotel and collapsed in bed.