I think this article will be quite long. I’ll divide it into some chapters. This is the Chapter 1.
Welcome to Phillip Island. To be honest, I don’t think the name is catchy. I mean, Phillip and they gave ‘Island’ at the back. It sure wasn’t on my bucket list.
One day I got the same days off as my husband, Aldi, and he suggested that we go to Phillip Island. At the time I had already heard about Phillip Island because one of my neighbours went there on the last school holiday. She stayed there with her family for several days.
The distance to Phillip Island from my place is not too far. It’s less than 100 kilometres. If you’ve ever read my blog about Great Ocean Road, well, it’s further to that place. That’s why I wondered why my neighbour spent several days there in Phillip Island while she could just do a day trip. But anyway I went there and stayed a night and that’s when I knew why it’s not enough to explore the island in just a day.
I wasn’t too excited but after doing some research I couldn’t wait to explore Phillip Island. It turned out that there are many places to visit there. So which places did I go?
DAY 1
Heading to Phillip Island
My husband and I left home at around 10 am and arrived the at around 2 pm. I don’t know why we arrived so late. Probably because we stopped for lunch for quite some time. The first destination was the hotel I had booked a couple of days before – The Island Accommodation. I loved the place! I reckon it’s the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in Australia.
Why did I say that? Simply because the hotel was within my budget. It’s affordable, clean, and comfortable. I got a good rate, only about $70/night. Usually, the average rate of a hotel/hostel room I got in Australia was around $100. Particularly when I booked it last minute. I booked The Island Accommodation 2 or 3 days before but the rate was still very affordable. Maybe because it wasn’t in a high season? Well, it’s winter and nobody wanted to spend holiday on an island.
The Circuit
After checking in, my husband and I went to Phillip Island circuit. My husband loves cars, bikes, and all boys stuff like that, so he was very eager to see it. I just realised that when I played race with play station, Phillip Island was always one of the circuit options. I became excited because of it. It was around 10 minutes to get there from the hotel following Google Maps.
The maps pointed us to go to the side of the circuit where we could see it behind the fences. To my surprise, there were a lot of people parking too. They stayed in the cars and watched whatever race that was happening inside. My husband’s eyes sparkled with excitement. For me, it was too much. The cars sound was too loud.
After some time, we left the spot and my husband wanted to see the circuit from the front. I didn’t think we could enter but the gate was wide open and it’s for public! It turned out there’s a museum in it. We only went to the parking lot and made a U turn. You’ll be surprise to know that we actually got back there on the next day. I’ll tell you about it later on.
The Penguins
This is the best part of Phillip Island! I love animals and that day I got to see the cutest! Penguin it is! Phillip Island is famous for the penguins. But to see them, we need to book tickets. I booked online and it cost me $32/adult. For further information, you can check the website.
https://bookings.penguins.org.au/BookingCat/Availability/?ParentCategory=WAF-WEBSITE
You can buy the tickets on site but just in case it’s overloaded, I suggest you to just buy online. Easier and it’ll save your time.
When you get the tickets, you can go to the beach directly.
But before that, there are some interesting things to see before you go there. The penguins will appear after sunset, so you can spend some time to shop souvenirs. There are 2 shops that offer a lot of cute penguins-related things. It’s like I wanted to grab them all! Or if you’re not into that kind of thing, you can have some coffee and snacks. There are several coffee shops / cafes that offer various kinds of food and drinks.
There’s also an interactive mini museum to know more about penguins that are usually spotted on the island. For the $64 that I spent for seeing the penguins, I think it was worth it. They really take good care of the place.
When it’s almost sunset, I got through the entrance gate towards the beach. I walked for about 5 minutes before reaching the spot.
I don’t know if you know Balinese Kecak Dance, but the vibes were similar. I never see the dance, to be honest, but sitting on tribune seat on the beach at sunset got me feel like it.
We waited for quite a long time. I reckon it was around 2 hours. It was freezing! I didn’t bring any book either. The reception was bad as well. It was a torture! I couldn’t do anything to kill the time but to talk with Aldi. What’s worst? I really wanted to pee! God! I should’ve gone to the toilet before!
My bad luck didn’t stop there. Just before sunset, the guide said that the penguins wouldn’t appear from the middle – I was already in the middle. I chose it because I thought it was the best position, but I was there not to see a movie let alone a concert! So the guide guided us to move to the side. The seats were full already, so I had to sit on the sand. I should’ve brought a towel or something like that. To hold the piss while sitting on the cold sand with an uncomfortable position was… I can’t describe more. Just don’t do that if you read this, please.
However, all my patience was not in vain. Half an hour after sunset, a bunch of penguins slowly appeared. A group and then the others. They waited for their friends. Some other birds (might be pradators) were waiting to disturb the process but they didn’t have the guts to get close to the penguins because the numbers were unmatched.
Too bad I couldn’t take any video or even a single photo. The guides warned us from the beginning not to and if we were caught, we’d be forced to leave. I tried to take a video with my phone that I hid in between my jacket but it was just so hard, so I just record everything with my eyes. They said it was okay to use cameras before but sometimes people forgot to turn off the flashes which disturbed the penguins. Then the foundation made a new rule. The good thing is that, they provide epic photographs of the penguins on the beach. They can easily accessed and downloaded on the website.
I was disappointed at first of not being able to have my own video or photos but then after seeing the penguins come out of the ocean, we were told to follow them walk to their homes. On the path, I took as much video and photos as I could. We were still not allowed to but I think the guides were loose a little bit.
I can’t express how beautiful they are! They’re so small and tiny and looked so fragile. I really wanted to hug them one by one, or at least pet them on the head – that of course impossible. But by just seeing them walk already made me so happy! And I didn’t know that they’re so chatty. The place was full of their chatter. That night, I also figured out that penguins live on the land under the bushes. Aldi said, because they’re birds, so the bushes are the nests. Okay, that makes sense. Where was I when my teacher explained this thing in high school? Oh, just so you know (or you probably already know) that this penguin is the smallest penguin in the world. They’re known as the fairy penguins / blue penguins / little blue penguins. If we look closer, we can see that the feather colour is blue. I didn’t notice because it was dark and I wasn’t too close to them. If you want to know more, you can surf the internet about this little penguin.
Anyway, that night was amazing! I want to go back there again someday. Doesn’t matter that I’ve already done it.
After seeing penguins, my husband and I went to the hotel and stopped by at a Chinese restaurant. The food was nice but the service sucked. Why? I’ll tell you in the next article.
