30 Phillip Island

ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento 

Phillip island was the destination for today. We had an option to take the ferry for part of the way or drive there directly. Since driving will get us there faster and free us from the ferry's schedule, we pressed Start and followed the directions as per the GPS.  And after about 20 minutes, we found ourselves by the ferry dock!  As it turned out, the GPS was set to the ferry dock accordingly to the original itinerary. Oh well, so David had less driving to do and we got to enjoy another experience, albeit at a cost of almost $100! The ferry was of a good size and the ride was smooth.

We obtained a combo pass for the three different attractions at Phillip Island. The first stop was the Churchill Island Heritage Farm. It used to be a real working farm, now it is used for demonstrations: cow milking, sheep shearing, whip cracking and dog handling, etc. The cow can produce 4 litres of milk a day and David went for his Kodak moment.  The sheep shearing was very interesting. You need to be strong to be a sheep shearer - to grab it from the pen and to hold it steady while you shear.  The fastest ones are called gun shearers and can shear 400 sheeps in an 8 hour day. The wool is very oily and it requires a bit of processing to clean, especially the belly wool which is quite dirty. Merino wool is more delicate and will take more time to shear. Where wool is produced, every sheep must be sheared, one by one, manually!

Can you see the whip?

David also tried cracking the whip.  The handler makes it look so easy,  but it is not.  He did get it to crack once out of the five tries. Another audience tried and he whipped himself ... and it hurt.  The dog handling was also a lot of fun; the one and only purpose of the dog is to coral the sheeps and it is very good at that.

Next was the Koala Sanctuary.  They built a raised boardwalk in an enclosed area so one can see the koalas up close. We saw over 10 koalas in two enclosed areas.  One of them was actually walking along a tree branch to get to her food; she was literally only 2 feet away.  This was very cool as we had only seen ones that are either eating or sleeping! I think they look the cutest when they are sleeping.

it's not often that you see a koala on the move

We had dinner in the cafeteria inside The Nobbies Center at the tip of the island. As we wandered along the boardwalk to watch the waves crashing on the shore, we could see Penguin habitats. We actually saw some moulting in their nests. The last attraction of the day was the Penguin Parade.  We  saw a few groups of ten to twenty penguins coming up the shore. Some of them are super fat as they prepare for the 10-15 days of moulting (during which they cannot go out to the sea ). We found out later that different types of VIP tickets will get you into an area where the bulk of the penguins (as in hundreds) would go. David was able to slip into the area at the end of the show and remarked about the scene of many, many penguins. The penguins were fun to watch when they waddled up the hill. They needed to take a rest once in a while; so they would walk walk walk, then stop and start the routine again.  The fat ones look the funniest.

Penguin Parade - from the Phillip Island gallery as we are not allowed to take pictures

All in all, it was another very enjoyable day.