10/13 Phillip Island

Things have been pretty slow here for the past month. We had our mid-semester break the last full week of September. I had starting making plans over a month beforehand with Niya to go to Cairns up in Queensland. Unfortunately, these plans fell apart and by the time I was looking to buy a flight the prices were incredibly high, so I decided to just stay in Melbourne for the week. Most days I just stayed at Monash, but a couple of times I went in to the city.

On that Wednesday I first walked around the city a bit, stopping at the Direct Factory Outlet, which is a bunch of retail stores that I had been told have good prices. However, everything there seemed quite overpriced to me, so I didn't stay there long. Then I went to the National Gallery of Victoria, but it was a disappointing trip. They have two locations, which are just a few blocks from each other, one has international art, and the other has Australian art. The international art gallery was quite expensive so I didn't go in, and the Australian gallery only had one level of paintings open, which was decent. In Federation Square, the AFL had a bunch of things set for the entire week because it was Grand Finals week. I walked around there for a while and got some free food, but I wasn't able to get one of the free footballs they were handing out. Afterwards I went to the State Library and hung out there for a while before going back to Monash.

On Thursday I went to Scienceworks which was on the other side of Melbourne a few miles outside of the city. I thought it would be like a science museum, but it was mostly aimed for children and most of the stuff cost to get into, but I got to see some exhibits for free with my student card. After that I went back to the city and saw the Bourne Legacy because I still had a free movie pass to use. I enjoyed the movie and then went back to Monash afterward.

One of the reasons I was content to stay in Melbourne for the semester break was because I bought a flight that was on sale to go to Townsville, which is in Queensland and is near the Great Barrier Reef. Classes end tomorrow (Friday 10/19), and we have a week off for a study week. I will fly to Townsville on Saturday (10/20) and return Thursday (10/25). Final exams start the following week and last for 3 full weeks. I have an exam on Friday of the first week, Tuesday and Thursday of the second week, and Wednesday of the third week. Then I fly home that Saturday, 11/17, so I will be home in less than a month. There are still a few sights in Victoria which I hope to see, specifically the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. These can be done in a day, so I plan to go see them between my finals as long as I have enough money to pay for it.

This past Saturday (10/13) was another IFSA-Butler event. Niya and I met the rest of the group at Flinders Street in the morning and we took a tour group van and went to Phillip Island, which was about an hour drive. The island is not far from the mainland, and is accessible via a small bridge. We stopped at the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory. We did not tour it, just stopped in their store for about 20 minutes. The chocolate all looked delicious, but also very expensive.

Next we went to one of the beaches and walked around there about half an hour. The weather was nice, but it wasn't warm.

Next we went to the main city on the small island, Cowes, where we had lunch. After that we went on a boat trip to the Seal Rocks, Australia's largest fur seal colony. The boat trip took nearly an hour to get to the rocks. We had nice seats on the boat, sitting at the very back facing behind the boat. I was nearly falling asleep after half an hour when I saw something swimming in the water less than 20 yards from the boat. At first I thought it was a shark, but it was actually a couple of dolphins. They didn't follow the boat for long, instead they went off in another direction, but we did see them jump up out of the water. Unfortunately  I wasn't able to get them on camera. The Seal Rocks were two very large rock formations a few hundred yards away from the island. On the rocks were hundreds of seals just sitting around, and a few were in the water. Some of the seals even swam up near the boat. I took plenty of pictures and videos, but it was hard to get a good picture of them, especially because the seals and the rocks were both brown. On the ride back there were more dolphin sightings. At one point I was at the front of the boat looking over the side and five dolphins swimming next to each other swam underneath the front of the boat and continued in the opposite direction. However, I think that whenever I had my camera out they disappeared until I had put it away.

Afterwards we had an hour or two until dinner, so we went on one of the walking trails. We didn't see much on the trails, except for a wallaby.

We then went to the Nobbies, which was a restaurant/store located right next to the Seal Rocks. We stopped on the way there near where the penguin parade is. There is a picture of the seating area where we sat to watch the penguin parade. We also found three penguins sitting under a wooden lookout platform. The food at the Nobbies was okay, I had pizza and chips (french fries). Then we walked around the Nobbies. They had paths that led towards the Seal Rocks, but the rocks were too far to see any seals.

We then went to see the penguin parade. What happens is there are a bunch of little penguins, the world's smallest penguin species, that have burrows on the island. At sunset, the penguins come out of the water after a day of hunting, and waddle across the beach to their sand dune burrows. Phillip Island is home to one of the largest little penguin colonies in the world. We had some time before the penguins were going to arrive, so we spent some time in the stores they had. We also had a group picture taken, which was done in front of a green screen. They didn't allow cameras to be used at any time because the flash on photos scare the penguins; they used to allow photography without flash, but too often people would forget they had flash on and they would scare the penguins on accident. The penguins were set to come at 8:02 (they are like clockwork), and we got out to the seating area at around 7:45. They came right on schedule. At first a few penguins would show up at the shore and wait some others. They like to go in groups for their own safety. Slowly more and more penguins showed up and they walked across the beach to their burrows. They walked right past the seating area, with many going in between the two areas. It was kind of difficult to see the penguins because our seats were kind of far away. After 10-15 minutes we walked back to the boardwalks because you can see them walking right beside the boardwalks to their burrows. I was able to hundreds of penguins walk by, and they were about 10 yards away. Some walked right next to the boardwalks, I could have reached out through the fence and grabbed one. After 15-20 minutes of that we met back at our van and drove back to the city, but we had to check under the vehicle for penguins before we left because they frequently end up in the parking lot.