This was our last day in Australia. Really, our last six days were all supposed to be with Adventure Tours, as we went to Kangaroo Island and back, along the Great Ocean Road, being dropped off in Melbourne Wednesday night, picked up in Melbourne on Thursday for the day trip to Phillip Island, and then leaving Friday. I've already wrote about what happened to the Great Ocean Road part of the tour.
One thing I am doing now as I write these is also sending feedback or thank you messages. I just posted reviews for the two Melbourne hotels, and now I need to contact Adventure Tours with my feedback. This is what I will say. They do offer good tours, and the prices are decent. It is not necessarily obvious from the web site how much roughing it is involved, or how active the tours are. The adventure makes it sound like things might be a little dangerous or exhilarating, but they are not. They are grueling.
The itineraries are exactly right for someone who is backpacking and staying in hostels between hikes. Now, if you are going to one place, and doing some exploring there, you might be able to get yourself around cheaper, but when you have several stops in the same general area, having a company that is taking you on the road and arranging your lodging and meals can be a really good thing. Our Kangaroo Island guide, Peter was great. Our Phillip Island guide, Stephen, was not quite as on top of things, but still got the job done, and was a really nice guy.
So really, I only have two complaints. One is the inadequacy of the web site, which was really pretty common for this trip. The other is that they just never picked us up on time. This was bad enough in Adelaide, where we were being chatted up by drunks at 6 in the morning in front of our hotel, but the concierge did keep checking on us, and we knew we were in the right place.
In Melbourne, we were on a street corner that was nowhere near our hotel, and there was no specification for which corner, and it did not look like a place where you would get picked up. Two of the corners were right by strips of grass leading to an underpass, one was by the side of a building that I think was a museum, but am not sure, and the other was by a mostly vacant building. There was no phone near by, and we did not have cell phones there, so as we waited for an hour (they said noon, but be there 15 minutes early, and he came at 12:45), it was really nerve-wracking. Plus, it was clear later that there would have been other stops that would have been closer to where we actually stayed, so I guess when they assigned that, we can add them to the list of people who have no idea where the Albany is.
Honestly, punctuality does not seem to be the most valued trait Down Under, and I don't mind being a little bit casual and laid back, but when you are afraid of being left behind, it's hard to relax. Fortunately, we did get picked up, so that was a help.
Given the chance to do it over, I am not sure I would take this particular tour of Phillip Island, because there is a lot we did not see. The island is most famous for the Penguin Parade, which I highly recommend. Other primary attractions include the Nobbies (some rocks with seals), Churchill Island Heritage Farm, and there is a Koala Conservation Center of which one feature is that you walk along a boardwalk through the trees, so you can look down or across at the koalas instead of up.
We only saw the Parade and the Nobbies, and honestly, you don't get a very good look at the seals. They're too far away. Instead, before leaving the mainland we stopped at another wild animal park, Maru. Maru was not bad at all, but I'm not sure that getting the three-attraction pass for the Island wouldn't have been better.
Maru is small, but they do have a wide variety of animals, especially birds. I have lots of pictures on our Shutterfly site.
I don't know if they do this with everyone, or only tours, but we all had to pass through the photo opportunity, where they took our pictures with a koala. You could not touch the koala, but they did hand you some leaves to feed it. My sisters avoided posing, but I went for it so I could feed the koala, and just never checked out the picture. I did get to feel it pulling the leaves from my hands, so that was kind of cool.
One thing Stephen pointed out was the new babies board, and he showed us an albino kangaroo, which he said was quite rare. I saw the joey, but then he stuck his little head back in before I could grab a photo, and never stuck it back out. I then saw a larger white one, which I thought might be the father, except he was kind of small. When he started trying to climb into the pouch of another kangaroo, I decided that was not right. In the end, I counted at least five white kangaroos. It may be rare in the wild, but it does seem to be a trait that gets passed on pretty easily.
The kangaroos there did not really respond to the chest scratching like at Bonorong, which was a little disappointing. They still took the food, but did not seem to care about the contact much. The emu were more amusing, because they were behind a fairly large fence. They would keep popping their heads up and pecking at the food we would put on the fence, so there was kind of a whack-a-mole vibe going on. I happened to get a shot of two heads up simultaneously, but it was usually one or the other.
There were many koala, but this one just looks so unkempt and seedy, I kept focusing on him. He was like the koala Gary Busey.
We had lunch here, and then drove to the island. It was the weekend of a big motorcycle race, so there were bikes everywhere, which was kind of cool. We did go by the track and see a few practice runs.
As I said, at the Nobbies we did not get a good look at the seals. We wandered around the visitors center, and it was also a rest stop where they offered us biscuits and tea. This was important, because there were a lot of sea gulls around, and you are not supposed to feed them, but they have never agreed to the rule. Anyway, two of the girls on our bus ran afoul of the gulls. One got near a nest, and saw the egg and was interested, but came under attack. Another went to help, but was carrying a biscuit. They had to make a speedy retreat. Now, with the pelican feeding, you would think it would remind me of Finding Nemo, and "Mine! Mine! Mine!", but visually, it reminded me more of The Birds. Suddenly, this moment was very much like the birds.
As you can see, two pictures are not from Maru. The surfer, well, I just thought he was attractive, but also I liked the image of him striding out of the surf. The penguin was the only penguin I could photograph there.
You see, no photography or videography is allowed at the Penguin Parade. The flashes are bad for their eyes, and if you tried just banning flash photography people would keep messing it up, whether intentionally or not. So, if you see a penguin anywhere else on the island, grab a picture then while it is fair game. This little guy was under a boardwalk at one of our stops.
What kind of a penguin is he? For a long time they have been called fairy penguins, but that name has gotten a little controversial. Little penguins and blue penguins also works, but I am afraid that my indecisiveness causes me to think of them as little blue fairy penguins. Big name for a small bird.
I do recommend seeing the parade. It is the number three attraction in Australia, after the Reef and the Rock (see, we got all the big ones). There are bleachers on the beach, and you go before dusk and the park rangers talk to you a bit, and as it gets darker they start coming ashore.
Being small, and vulnerable to predators, as it is time to come ashore they wait near the edge and then start crossing the sand in groups. It's amazing how dramatic it is. You wait and wait, and then you start seeing little groups coming into sight, and they are adorable. One got separated from its raft, and I was just watching and waiting for it to finally clear the little hill and make it safely back. It did. There was also one with a limp, and apparently the rangers do look out for injured birds, so it was probably fine as well.
Little penguins do not go out to see every day, but they do get more active at night regardless, so as you work your way back along the paths you see and hear penguins everywhere--more than you would have expected from the numbers coming ashore. You still can't take pictures, but even though they say no recording, I imagine a sound recorder would be okay, and might be worthwhile. They make a lot of noise.
We happened to be there while the short-tailed shearwaters (mutton birds) were there. These are migratory birds that come from the Aleutian Islands, and there were just thousands of them. That part of the night was really amazing.
When it was over we made our way back to the bus, and Stephen got us pizza for dinner. It was okay, not great, but hey, he dropped us off a block in front of our hotel, so we did not have to spend an hour traveling at midnight, transferring between two trams. No, he had never heard of the Albany or Millswyn street either, but I still had the map, and fortunately, Millswyn connects to a pretty major road.
The next morning we left for New Zealand.
I should mention, although Melbourne was full of disappointments, there was a lot of really beautiful architecture. I didn't really get any photos, and again, I'm not sure I'd go back, but it's worth pointing out.
http://www.penguins.org.au/
http://www.marukoalapark.com.au/
http://harristravel.shutterfly.com/497
http://www.phillipislandcircuit.com.au/
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