Saturday & Sunday, Phillip Island!

Saturday, 22 September

Woke up at six, right back to sleep, woke up at eight, couldn't get back to sleep. Also, late night + sinus pressure in my inner ear = absolutely zero balance. Thank you!
In the morning, though, we got up and got ready to go to Phillip Island with Andy and the boys. Yay!\
I didn't know this, but apparently Phillip Island is a collection of three-four parks all over the actual island.
Anyway, Andy and the boys picked us up around 1:30 and we headed down south to a tiny little almost-a-town where Jo's sister and her family live.
They live on a beautiful dairy farm with a lot of acreage and a herd of 100 cows!
After arriving and meeting the family, Dave and Andy took us on an awesome drive through the valley and to a gourmet ice cream, wine, and cheese shop. We only had ice cream, and wow it was amazing! The views were pretty too, but the ice cream ...Yum!
We headed back and got introduced to the four-day-old, two-week-old, 2 month old, and four month old calves on the farm. They are super cute, but our conclusion is that cows are just weird. Full stop.
We walked around the land a bit, and were looking out over the valley right at sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous! And when I finally find the time to plug in and edit all these pictures I'll add some here. But for right now, just trust me.
After watching the footy (Adelaide v Hawthorne) - which was a qualifying match for the grand final (Adelaide fought back hard, but Hawthorne came out on top), we had an early night. Thank goodness.

Sunday, 23 September

The next morning we headed to the actual island.
Our first stop was the Koala Conservatory - so many of them! Andy is the best spotter ever, much to the boys' (who were keeping score) dismay.
We also got a really close-up view of a Kookaburra - such awesome birds. I wish he had laughed when I was that close, though.
After the Koalas, we headed out to lunch at a town called Cows. Haha. Delicious paninis and chips and then off to the nobbies!
The nobbies are a national park with a beautiful view of some huge rocks in the distance in the shape of knobs (like on a stove). Again, it'll be more clear when I upload some pictures.
The nobbies is where you go to see seals on Phillip Island. Unfortunately, we didn't see any seals, but it was a beautiful day, if a bit windy, and we some a couple of Cape Bering Geese and Goslings - so cute! (Again - photos later). I got tons of great pictures of the Nobbies and the Ocean.
Next we headed to the Penguin Parade! Before we saw the penguins, Andy and Jo booked us an Eco-Tour with a ranger talking about the history of the penguin parade, which was super cool! On the way back to the center, too, we saw the most amazing double rainbow! (It went all the way across the sky).
When we got back to the centre, we had a few minutes to burn before we should start heading down to get seats, so we bummed around and bought some ponchos to sit on. We had some snacks and mosied on down to find some seats.
After getting settled in our spots Sven (the guide guy for the actual parade) comes on and chats with us for a few minutes, telling us not to make loud noises, throw things, or take pictures.
The light slowly started to go down and we saw some wallabies on top of the hill - pretty cool to see them in the wild!
Anyway, we slowly began hearing interesting noises; splashes, squeaks, and grunts. We weren't supposed to stand up in the bleachers, so we craned our necks around to see what we could see.
Eventually, we started to see some movement in the dusk light!\
We started to see some penguins waddling their way up!!!! They were so freaking cute and funny it was insane. And the amount of self-control I exhibited to NOT take pictures was seriously impressive. Ask anyone who knows me.
Seriously, youtube, 'fairy penguins', 'little penguins' or 'blue penguins' - these are all names used for the smallest of the 17 known species of penguin in the world. Anyway; it was awesome and I can't explain.
Oh! Also on the way back up to the centre (after watching the penguins), we saw two penguins laying down...one on top of the other...gettin' busy. We stopped for a second, incredulous, and the ranger said quietly, "Well, they're going to have more than two eggs this year!"
Awesome.