Philip Island and the Penguin Parade

Philip Island is just south of Melbourne and is famous for its small penguins. The idea of penguins in their natural habitat obviously meant that my Mum and I did a day trip out there to see them, among other things.

I was in a shit mood the day we were headed out to Philip Island—who knew how bloody difficult it would be to find an apartment in Melbourne?!?! The cheapest places are $250/week to SHARE a bedroom with someone. UGH. (Although now, after spending another week in Melbourne and viewing some rather interesting places, I think I’ve found a place to live—and the place has 2 cats!) But there is nothing in this world that will turn my mood around quicker and make me boundlessly happy than the site of animals, so it was a very good day for me to be in the company of koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, and little penguins. 

First off though, there were these 2 totally mental (and somewhat terrifying) nuns on our tour. Wearing their habits, in 40-degree weather. They were originally from Beirut, but now live in Sydney. They both had iPhones and took pictures through the front of the bus of the highway the whole trip. Their ring tone was church bells. CHURCH BELLS. I still can’t get over this. The first time we heard the ringtone bells, we were out at a winery and weren’t sure where the sound was coming from, and my Mum made a joke that it was the nun’s ringtone—and sure enough, it was! One of the nuns (the scarier older one) pushed me out of the bathroom at a gas station to use it first. They yelled things the entire tour. It was actually insane. And so weird (Note: even my very nice and much more patient mother hated these nuns. They were straight up bat-shit crazy).

Anyway, the Nuns (oh and a group of French Canadians, clearly) made the bus ride and the day interesting to say the least. But Philip Island was amazing! Definitely a huge highlight of the trip thus far, and considering how expensive everything in Aus is, totally worth the money. We first hit up a hilarious chocolate factory, and being from Ottawa, and having visited the Smith Falls Hersey factory multiple times, I didn’t think I’d really care about seeing another chocolate factory, but I have to say, this place was worth the visit. First off, they had a life size chocolate recreation of Michelangelo’s David, which my Mum and I loved (especially b/c it really offended the old nun, who whizzed right by it in a huff). 

It also had these weird psychedelic chocolate displays, complete with acid trip inducing strobe lights, and an entire chocolate railway system with Canadian (CN) miniature trains. 

My favourite though was this chocolate waterfall/fountain type thing where liquid chocolate just rains down into a huge chocolate trough. I honestly wanted to just get into the chocolate trough and float away like the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

They also had chocolate covered frozen bananas a la Arrested Development, and yes, there is always money in the banana stand (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad joke!)

Next up we went to this small winery for a wine tasting (complete with glorious local cheeses which me and my Mum ate our weight in). I clearly sampled all the wines (the nuns were drinking it down as well!) and they were really good. They had this red wine that was the almost the colour of blood oranges, very bright and more see-through than a regular red wine. That one was my favourite, and so we picked up a bottle to give to my Canadian friends Sarah and Pete, who live in Melbourne, and who are very kindly storing my huge orange monster of a wheelie suitcase in their garage while I schlep around Aus and try to sort everything out!

Then we went to a Koala Conservation Park. And OMG, I just can’t even begin to explain how incredible it was to see real live koalas sleeping the hot day away in trees, doing an absolute balancing act. I have no clue how they wedge themselves in the crooks of trees and fully sleep without falling out. They hardly move either. They are just full on fluffy enjoyers, sleeping 20 hours a day (sounds a lot like 2 cats I know back home!) b/c apparently eucalyptus is really hard to digest, so they just sleep it off everyday. Koalas are seriously some of the cutest most ridiculous animals ever-their little hands and feet, and the way they curl up into a ball in a damn tree is just so absurd.

Clearly the park ranger dude in the conservation park could tell how excited and mental I was about seeing the koalas (good observation on his part), and so he came up to me and said that once all the other people had moved on, I could go under the barrier and look at one of the koalas (Harriet) more closely. I practically burst into tears when I saw her up close (happy, state of wonderment, loving tears). She looked so unreal to me, having only ever seen pictures and stuffed animals of koalas my whole life, and her being so still just sleeping away the hot day, she was incredible. I asked the dude who his favourite koala was in the area, and he said it was her, Harriet, b/c despite sleeping 20 hours a day, she gets real feisty and is kind of a badass. That’s my kind of koala.

This is Harriet!

On our way to the Nobbies (a pretty lookout on the ocean) we saw some kangaroos, which are the weirdest looking animals ever. Seeing them move and hop on their huge hind legs is really something. It looks like it shouldn’t be possible, and the hops are quite slow and deliberate, almost like they are moving in slow motion. Their tales are huge too, especially compared to their very skinny limbs, and when they sit upright they balance on their tales, kind of like sitting on a camp chair.

We made our way out to the southwestern tip of Philip Island to the Nobbies (I’m not sure if the rocks are called the Nobbies or the lookout point) and Seal Rocks, which is where Australia’s largest colony of fur seals are (though I didn’t see any during the short time we were there as I was more fixated on the beautiful sky and the baby penguins in their burrows). 

The view was spectacular, and we saw a few wallabies on our way there and back. 

They built a sort of boardwalk that zig-zags across the mount and when you’re on it you can just see some of the baby penguins in their burrows (some penguin made, and some human made that penguins willingly adopted) waiting anxiously for their parents to return from sea and feed them (the penguin parents won’t come until after the sun sets though, so as to be safe from predators)

Penguin made burrow

Human made burrow

Then it was on to the “Penguin Parade” itself, which was the whole reason we decided to do this day trip and obviously we upgraded to the Premium package so that we could have a front row seat on the beach to see the penguins emerge from the ocean. Going to the “Penguin Parade” enables you to go into this protected penguin colony and watch as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of little penguins (that is the type of penguin, little, they are only about a foot high) come out of the sea after sunset and trek up over the rocks and often up large hills and over roads, in order to feed their young. Sometimes the little penguins will have been out to sea for 24-48 hours and they’ve travelled huge distances. The chicks are starving b/c they haven’t been fed in a day or 2, and so when they see any adult penguin approach they will just straight up attack them wanting food b/c they can’t tell whom their parents are. Parents identify their young, not only by returning to the same burrow, on the same route from the ocean (and it’s amazing b/c you can see little penguin tracks that go through the tall grass etc.) but mostly through sound, as each penguin has a distinct call. They only leave the water to approach the rocks in groups; they won’t do it alone (again, safety in numbers). They are so small and must be so tired (though they are able to take really quick naps in the water like dolphins, and sometimes you saw them stop on their trail to their burrow and put their head down for some quick shut-eye), but they trek up these huge rocks that you wouldn’t think they’d be able to get up, and then on to their burrows. Watching this was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  These kinds of penguins don’t necessarily mate for life like other breeds do. My favourite thing about them is that if a male penguin isn’t a good parent, or isn’t good at keeping the burrow neat and tidy and well taken care of, his female mate will kick him to the curb and find someone better!

You aren’t allowed to take pictures when you’re there b/c penguins have very sensitive eyes that make them able to see really well in the water and in both dark and light, but I bought 2 postcards that show (sort of) what it is like. 

I was tempted to buy a little stuffed animal penguin in a knitted sweater, but my Mum vetoed that decision (probably for the best but look at how damn cute they are!)

Tasmania Part 2

God, I am so far behind writing about all the stuff me and my Mum did (considering she has already been back in Canada for a couple of days after 3.5 weeks with me here, and I’m only just writing about our first week touring Australia). I choose to blame it on the shittiness of Australia’s Internet (quality and price) as well as the psychotic heat (+39 degrees in Melbourne today) and not on my own laziness!

Our third day out on the road in Tas, we went to Cradle Mountain for what was supposed to be a very nice 2 hour hike around Dove Lake at the bottom of the Mountain. Well, the day was a tiny bit of a disaster b/c about 8 minutes into our hike, it started pouring rain, and I mean pouring cold rain, and it never stopped! The walk was quite beautiful, but only for so long, because when you’re that wet and cold, it’s hard to give a shit about the views/landscape/plants around you. 

It sort of took me back to tree-planting in that you were soaking wet and really uncomfortable, but you had no choice but to keep moving, knowing that it was going to be a long time until you were dry again. Actually, a lot of Tasmania gave me tree-planting flashbacks b/c a big part of the island bush is re-planted trees due to the huge amounts of de-forestation that occurred in 18/1900’s. Seeing re-planted forests and tree saplings always gives me both a sickening nightmarish feeling of panic (at the thought of planting) and pride and happiness (at the thought of planting)—but that’s tree planter life for ya. We spent that night in Lanceston, the second biggest city in Tas and took ourselves out for an Indian dinner and a much needed (and deserved?) glass of vino. The one thing I say you can always rely on is that no matter what country you’re in, or how small a town is there will always be a good, reliable Indian restaurant to eat at. We saw a bad ass rainbow too!

The next day, we headed back to Hobart and then spent the afternoon at MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art) which was incredible. So here’s the deal with MONA: it is this wild art gallery built by an eccentric millionaire, David Walsh, in a really poor suburb of Hobart, one of the lowest socio-economic communities in Tasmania. This guy grew up there, pretty poor, but is some kind of genius--he has Asperger’s and is really good at counting cards (how he became a millionaire), so good in fact that he has now been banned from every major casino worldwide. Tassies refer to him as the “Great Gatsby of Hobart.” So, now that he has all this money, he built a huge elaborate art gallery with his private collection of art and opened it to the public. To get to the gallery, you take a camouflage-coloured ferryboat. 

The building itself is phenomenal—it looks like a huge bunker made of solid rock. It is actually built into the side of the cliff on the peninsula, and most of the gallery is underground with a glass spiral staircase taking you to the different floors. 

And the art collection inside is wild--they had one of Marina Abramovic’s--the Serbian “grandmother” of performance art--early video installations! I LOVE her! I wish that I could describe all the amazing installations and pieces in the gallery, but it’s so difficult to put into words b/c a lot of it is so conceptual. 

One of the coolest pieces was a water installation that rained down specific popular words taken from the news cycle. 

One room was full of 25 different television screens all with different people singing the entirety of Madonna’s “The Immaculate Collection” album. 

My favourite pieces were a room filled with 40 televisions and old couches with 40 different people all from the same small village talking about the best and worst things that have happened in their lives.  

I know that modern art installations aren’t everybody’s cup of tea b/c they usually don’t have the same aesthetic beauty that classic art does, but some pieces can be so moving and poignant and have such an intellectual impact on the observer, ugh, I just love it! Seriously, I could have spent days in that museum (especially since I realized once we were leaving that I had some how missed the room that had a number of working stomachs!) One of the coolest things about the space was that they gave you an iPod touch with all the installation/artist info on it and through the GPS on it, it would tell you what was near you and tell you all about it, and then at the end of your visit, the device would email you your own personal tour you did with all the info on the pieces that you had viewed. Such a great idea I think.

Our last full day in Tasmania, we ventured off to Wineglass Bay on the east coast, which is probably the most popular site/attraction in Tas. It is a beautiful bay at the foot of a range of mountains, and if you do a short climb up to one of the lower summits, you get a fantastic view of the crystal blue waters and white sand of the bay. 

Apparently it’s called wineglass bay b/c a long time ago, Euro settlers went about killing a whole bunch of whales in the bay and all the blood turned the water red, so the bay itself looked like a huge glass of red wine. I know, disgusting, and shameful. Don’t get me started on the fact that the Aus. Government lets Japanese whalers enter their water to murder whales. Repulsive. Sorry, rage attack side-track.

The walk up to the lookout point was full of huge round boulders, some of which were practically suspended in the air and looked like they were going to come crashing down on you (very Indiana Jones-esque) and were formed during the last ice age. 

Probably the best thing I saw though was this big ass boulder called “Sad faced rock man” which, you guessed it, looks like the face of a sad man. If you know anything about the weird sense of humour my best friend Norah and I have, you’ll know that I was immediately obsessed with this and had to document it and send it to her right away! Look at that sad faced man!

After Tas, Susie Mrk and I headed to Melbourne. Over the Christmas holidays when I was trying to pack and get everything organized, there was a part of me saying “why the hell am I doing this again?” referring to going overseas for 7 months and being away etc. (and my family probably wanted to punch me in the head). But arriving in Melbourne made all of those doubts melt away. Melbourne is such a cool city, and getting here brought me back to the feeling I got 3 years ago when I passed through this city, fell in love with it, and decided that I needed to figure out a way to come back and live here. I think my favourite thing about Melbourne is its mix of old and modern—such beautiful old architecture mixed with uber modern buildings and spaces. It is also a city of about 100 neighbourhoods, each with its own feel, which reminds me of Toronto. I love that. It was so nice to be able to show my Mum where I’m going to be spending the next few months of my life. We went to the Queen Victoria market, the State library, ate glorious food, drank amazing coffee (and went to the Australia Open and Philip Island-but that is for next post!)

Tasmania Part 1

We spent the day after NYE tooling around Sydney seeing the sites (and spent way too many hours in the Apple store trying to get my phone shit sorted). As per my mother’s demand we checked out the Sydney Opera House which I always thought was one crazy wave shaped building (b/c of the view always shown of it from the harbour) but it turns out it is actually 3 triangular shaped buildings that are completely separate from one another. Also, the outside is made up of a mosaic of white tiles (and I always thought it was a smoothed surface). The things you learn! It really is very beautiful though, and when we head back to Sydney before my Mum flies out, we are planning to take a tour of the inside.

The setting of the opera house is pretty spectacular as well. Not only is it a perfect vantage point to see the Bridge and all the Harbour activity, it is right beside Sydney’s botanical gardens—another Susie Mrk obsession: gardens.  The kind of trees and plants they have is so different from Canada. It’s hard to explain all the crazy species of flora/fauna: some trees are similar to Northern California’s famous redwoods, and others are totally tropical. The garden also just recently built a bat-cave (as in, an actual cave for bats to live in) out of thousands of stones--so badass.

We flew to Tasmania the next day, into its capital Hobart, which is right at the very south of the island. Hobart is actually closer to Antarctica than it is to Australia, which is why its weather is slightly psychotic. Exhibit A: mere moments after leaving our hostel in Hobart the day we arrived, it was so windy my sunglasses flew off my face and down the road into the middle of an intersection, to be immediately run over and smashed by a car! I was sad to lose my sunnies (the second pair of sunglasses my Mum and I had destroyed in 4 days!) but it was pretty hilarious. Honestly, I think Tasmania is the windiest place I’ve ever been, including NZ’s capital which they call “Windy Welly.”

Totally unknowingly, we arrived in Hobart at the most perfect time of year. There is a yacht race from Sydney to Hobart every NYE and all the boats were just departing the day we arrived, so it was pretty cool to watch them all sail off. Also, during the week surrounding NYE, Hobart hosts a big food/booze festival called Taste of Tasmania that showcases all of the best restaurateurs and wineries from across Tasmania (and has bands and weird acrobatic acts etc.) It is so deliciously amazing esp. b/c Tasmania grows every kind of fruit/veg/crop imaginable (including poppies for opiates that are defended by armed guards!) due to its “temperate” weather. And being a big ass island in the middle of the south Pacific, they have really badass seafood (of which Susie Mrk enjoyed, and I did not). We both partook in sampling some of Tas’ delicious booze however!

 Our second day in Tas, we left on a 3 day outdoor adventure to see the West coast and hike in some the National Parks. Tasmania is such a diverse place in terms of geography. There are parts of it that reminded me of Spain (dry and golden), South Island NZ and BC (green hills and mountains), Iceland (rocky, rugged), Thailand (tropical/rainforest) and then parts that were just completely different altogether and hard to explain. They say in Tasmania “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes” b/c it is forever changing. 3 seasons in one day kind of thing, and it seems to rain every 5 minutes! We got fun of a lot over the 3 days b/c we were constantly freezing which everyone thought absurd considering we’re from the great cold north! But damn, it was cold (and we didn’t come fully weather appropriately adorned, thinking that everywhere in Aus had to be relatively warm b/c it’s summer-we’re idiots!)

Our first day out in the wild, we saw what I thought at the time was a wombat, but was actually this weird animal called a paddimelon: sort of the cross btwn a huge rat/squirrel and a kangaroo. Anyway, he didn’t really care about seeing us and just continued to sit on his haunches eating his breakfast with his little hands.  He was so ridiculous.

We also drove through this old mining town called Queenstown which is certainly a cautionary tale for what mining and resource extraction can do to a place. Seriously, one of the weirdest towns I’ve been to: a combination of a Northern Ontario logging town, something out of a Stephen King novel, and the setting of a really bad B horror movie where everyone gets killed. Apparently back in the mid 1800s, it was a booming place and really wealthy, but they literally destroyed the entire environment by mining and now it’s just a strange barren wasteland. I think you can buy a house there for 50k (and considering everything in Aus is a billion dollars, that’s a pretty cheap deal, though you really wouldn't want to live there).

Our second day out in Western Tas was both my Mum’s and my favourite. We went to this truly wild and uninhabited beach called Trial Harbour. Honestly, it's the craziest wind and surf both of us have ever seen (no wonder it was the site of a whole bunch of shipwrecks back when England was shipping prisoners over to Tas). You could barely hear yourself think over the roar of the waves and wind. After Trial Harbour we headed off to explore some sand dunes near by. I can't think of another place I've been where the landscape around you changes so dramatically within such a short distance. 

That's all for now! I'm still trying to catch up on all we've done so far which is quite a bit. (We're currently up in Queensland being beach bums in the Whitsunday islands and are going on an overnight sailing trip before back to Sydney. My Mum leaves in 6 days-eek!)