Bright and early Wednesday morning we left for the airport and the final leg of our trip, Melbourne. During the ride back to Cairns airport, we were able to see the beautiful view along the coastline road. It was some of the most breathtaking scenery I had ever seen.
We arrived in Melbourne in the early afternoon and got checked into the hotel. Immediately we could notice the change in temperature. It was a lot cooler in Melbourne than we had experienced in Port Douglas.
We were staying in the Hilton on the South Wharf. It is a new hotel in the convention center district of Melbourne and the area is under a major development along the river. The views from our hotel were beautiful. We decided to walk along the river down to the casino. We spent the evening playing black jack and had dinner at the casino complex.
On Thursday morning we took the tram around the city of Melbourne taking in the city sites. We went to the Queen Victoria Market. It’s a huge outdoor market that has crafts, clothing, gifts, food markets, you name it it’s probably sold here. We had lunch at one of the food courts and then continued our tour around the city. We went to a huge downtown shopping mall. Shopping seems to be a big pastime in Melbourne. Thursday night we went to dinner at a waterfront restaurant and again had some great seafood. We finished up the night back at the black jack tables. Whatever I had won the night before I gave back that night. Easy come, easy go.
Friday morning we decided to rent a car and go to Phillip Island. It is about one and half hours outside of Melbourne and is the site of Penguin Parade. The little penguins, or sometimes called fairy penguins, come out of the sea every night at sunset. It is a protected area and full of burrows and natural places for the penguins to nest and rest.
The drive down to Phillip Island gave us a chance to see the countryside outside of Melbourne. After a while Joe got used to driving on the left and remembering the turn signal was on the right and was able to settle down and enjoy the scenery. Joe says you can always tell when a foreigner is driving in Australia because the windshield wipers are on it’s not raining (windshield wipers on the left). Take away the fact that we were driving on the opposite side of the road, the whole drive reminded us of driving somewhere in Texas or somewhere in the California wine country. There were farms and open land and periodically you would see signs for nearby vineyards.
We spent the remaining afternoon driving around the island, having lunch in a small restaurant in one of the small towns and enjoying the beautiful ocean views. We went out the southernmost point of the island that is called Seal Rock where the seals come in from the sea. It was also interesting while driving around the island to see road signs warning of kangaroos crossing and koalas on the road after dark!
Close to dusk we went to the sanctuary where the penguin parade takes place. We had tickets for a viewing area where you sit on a platform and watch the penguins come up from the sea and they would parade right by you. No cameras of any kind are permitted at this event for the protection of the penguins. Not sure why cameras without flashes or videos bother them but the people’s voices don’t but anyway no cameras. There is lots info on the Internet about the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island and also several videos on You Tube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGdipHSYcGM).
It’s so funny to sit there in anticipation of these little guys coming up out of the water. As the sun sets there are pale lights throughout the beach area that start coming on. As you watch the surf as it gets dark all the sudden there’s a group emerging from the water. They may be in a group of 50 or 100 or groups much smaller but there they come, parading out of the surf onto the beach. They have to cover about 50 or more yards until they get to the brush and grass protection of the land but they are so cute to watch as they come in. They are no more that 12 inches in height and so funny to watch. We were sitting near an area that is well traveled by the penguins each night and it has a slight rise in ground near the platform. You can see them coming in from the surf and then you lose sight of them. All of the sudden there they come over the rise! Sometimes the leaders will stop at the top of the hill and everything seems to stop behind them. They may stay that way for several minutes, seeming to wait for one penguin to continue down the small hill. Then it’s like a dam bursts and here they come parading right by the platform. We were told over 600 penguins had come in the night and over 400 of them came by the viewing platform we were sitting at on that particular night. As we sat there over the 30 minutes we saw several hundred walk by us into the outlying area to burrows and other natural protection. It’s truly a sight to see and we both enjoyed the experience. We were even warned as we left to check under our car in the parking lot because it had been known for some of these little penguins to get as far as the parking lots and some had actually been hit by cars.
We drove back to Melbourne shortly thereafter. No mishaps with kangaroos or koalas in the road along the way. We did, however, have a VERY near miss with either a very large dog or dingo on the road back to Melbourne. It came upon us to fast it was all Joe could do to control the car and avoid hitting the animal. With our small car the animal was as tall as the hood of the car.
Saturday morning we took it easy. Our flight back to Hong Kong was not until 9:55 that night so we had the day to kill. The only other sight we were interested in seeing was about a three-hour drive away so we stayed close to the hotel most of the day. In the afternoon we went back over to the casino for a few hours and had marginal luck at the black jack tables. Then it was off to the airport.
We had the most amazing Australian experience. For the most part we opted not to take organized tours. Many of them were very expensive and required the entire day. We were more interested in getting out into the cities and areas on our own and experiencing things on our own terms. If we had planned our tripped better, knowing what we know now, we would have spent less time in Sydney and Melbourne and opted for more time in Queensland. We will definitely get back to Queensland and rent a car to explore what there is to see in that area of Australia. Many of the things we wanted to see were great distances out from the where we stayed and required more planning and time. Again we could have opted for tours but if we were going to take a whole day we would rather be in a car experiencing the area for ourselves.
All in all I would say this is probably the best, most amazing place I have ever been. Most places we have visited in the past year we would probably go back to, but Australia is someplace I feel we will definitely return before we move back to the states. Australia was a very friendly country. It felt a lot like being home, even if they do drive on the wrong side of the street and have crazy accents. I love their expressions for simple things like “brekky” for breakfast and how they call everyone “mate”.
Good day, mate!
Love to all!
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