Went to Wilson's Prom and Phillip Island

Location: Melbourne
Weather: Very Cold

oh yeah I did do something exciting recently. I hired a car for 2 days and visited Wilson's Promontry and Phillip Island. Wilson's 'Prom' is a famous national park on the southern tip of Victoria. It is home to lots of wildlife, mountains, coastline and stuff! when I finally got there, after about 3 hours drive, I happened across a wombat! eating grass in broad daylight. After this I stopped at Squeaky Beach, which is a very nice beach and where the sand is supposed to squeak...it didn't for me. I also climbed Mount Oberon(about 7km up and down), which is the highest peak in the park, sadly though the whole place was very misty so I saw absolutely nothing except cloud! On the way back I saw more wombats and a few kanagaroos, but they all ran away when I stopped the car and tried to catch them
Apparently there are also emus out there, but I didn't see any. There are several camp groups in Wilsons Prom and it is a nice place, so I think I will take a tent next time and go at a nicer time of year.

The following day, I drove to Arthurs Seat in Mornington Penninsula...apparently a glorious scenic lookout for most, but for me a place where the visibility was about 3m's...the lowest I've ever seen in fact! so again all I saw was cloud. Upon leaving this place and heading south west, the weather cleared up a bit and despite some rain, I approached Phillip Island with the sun shining. Just before crossing the bridge to get to Phillip Island I stopped at a lookout and saw quite a stunning view of the countryside, it looked like a painting, reminded me of New Zealand and the English countryside. I've been meaning to go to Phillip Island since January, but have missed it for whatever reason. Once I got there I headed to the Koala wildlife park and saw several of them hanging around in the trees, which was quite good. There is also a famous motorbike grand prix track, so I took a quick look at that. By now it was around 5pm so I drove on and saw the sun set over "The Nobbies" - a group of rocks in the sea, much like the 12 Apostles of the Great Ocean Road. It was also like scene from The Birds, as it was nesting time for about 10million seagulls and the Nobbies boardwalk goes right past them all. Interestingly, as well as squarking and trying to dive bomb you every 10 seconds, the feathered beasts ponged most horridly!

Phillip Island is one of the most famous parts of Victoria mainly due to penguins - Penguin Parade to be precise. So after escaping the seagulls at the Nobbies I went to Penguin Parade and took my seat. Basically what happens is that after sun down, they put on these special spot lights by the beach and we all sit around in a special stand by the beach and wait for these Little Penguins to come in from the ocean and return to their burrows. There was about a hundred of us waiting there (in summer there are hundreds more). All well and good and great fun when the first penguin appeared out of the waves, but then it started to pour with rain. Even better, after sitting there, getting soaked for over an hour, we saw a grand total of TWO little penguins walk or 'parade' past us! hooray! there were quite a lot by the sea shore, but they kept getting scared and running back into the water. "These are wild animals and will act however they feel", said the guide! Luckily there is a board walk past their burrows on the way out, so I saw a lot more around there. Many people say Penguin Parade is too commercial, but I disagree, the penguins aren't exploited in any way and I'm sure they get a cut of the profits.

Conclusion: Phillip Island is a very beautiful place, with lots of things to do, I recommend it to everybody, there's even a housing estate called Wimbledon Heights on the island!

By JamesReed on 15.08.04 @ 05:53 PM GMT