Maddox Tan: 2015

10 Days In Melbourne Part 2

2015

Day 2

The Koala Conservation Center - Phillip Island

On the second day in Australia, my friends and I decided to take a trip to the Phillip Island! The first thing we did in the early morning were to collect our cars that we have booked from Budget Rent A Car, a car rental store which is located at the Franklin Street. Since there were eight of us, we rented two cars, more specifically a Hyundai Elantra and a Nissan Pulsar Sedan, where each of the cars cost around AUD$200 which included a premium insurance. Well, personally I would not recommend you to use their service if you are below 23 as for certain reasons you have to pay a huge amount of deposit if you are below that age. Otherwise, you are good to go and they might even upgrade your car for free ( they did upgrade ours)!

After we got our cars, we took off around ten in the morning. I have to remind you that priorities are given to the pedestrians at all times. Having said that, you should stop your car and let them cross the road when you see them. Being oblivious to the rule and my friend who forgot to inform me, I got scolded by them and they even showed their middle fingers (sorry). Initially our plan was visiting the Dandenong Ranges National Park before driving to the Phillip Island but we had to change our plan for it rained when we reached. Perhaps lady luck was not on our side that day. Hence, all of us unanimously decided to head straight to Philip Island and visit the Dandenong while we were driving back from Phillip Island.

The journey from Dandenong Ranges to Phillip Island took about two hours as we stopped by the KFC in between to have our lunch before proceeding. Honestly speaking, I think the KFC chain back in Malaysia is way better than the ones in Australia. This is partly due to my penchant for consuming fast food with chilli sauce. To my dismay, KFC in Australia do not serve sauces (neither ketchup nor chilli sauce) but they do have this sauce called the sweet chilli that tasted nothing close to spicy #sad. After finishing our lunch, we continued driving to our destination. The view along the road was really magnificent and breath-taking. There were numerous farms spreading all over the bare land which filled with herd of cows and sheeps. I feel particularly relaxing and comfortable throughout the whole trip as it was cool and windy!

Spotted a Malaysian car! #gasp

Meh

The first thing we did after reaching the Phillip Island after checking in at our rented houses was to visit the famous Koala Conservation Center! We purchased a 3 park pass with general admission that included the Penguin Parade, the Churchill Island Heritage Farm and the Koala Conservation Center which cost AUD$ 41.60 per person (adult)! Then we entered the koala park in hope of interacting with the active koalas but to no avail. Most of the koalas (all of them) curled into grey fluffy balls and were quietly sleeping. Having said that, we could not even see their faces, let alone taking the pictures of those cute creatures. Fortunately we could see few wallabies hopping around the park, albeit they disappeared when we tried to approach them. Wallaby is in the similar family as the kangaroo and it is much smaller in size compared to it's cousin. Other than that, we got to observe few wild birds flying around. Basically, I think you can skip this Conservation Center during winter for I feel that it is just pretty not worth the money you spend to enter the area only to see few sleepy koalas on the branches.

Mind you this is a robotic koala!

The Penguin Parade

Right after that, we continued our trip to the next destination, which was the Penguin Parade. One of the attractions in the Phillip Island is nothing but its adorable little penguins! We entered the compound after showing our tickets we had bought earlier at the Koala Conservation Center. Inside the building, there were various souvenirs ranging from shirts with penguin prints to penguins' fridge magnets. Then we exit the building and went to the beach area to watch the penguins returning to their home from the sea. Unfortunately, we were not permitted to took the pictures of the tiny creatures as the staff told us that the flash coming emitted from the camera would cause confusions to the penguins, making them unable to trace their way back to home. We could see flashes of white lights (much like sardines) when they appeared from the shore, flapping their tiny wings vigorously as the ray of sunlight hit their wet bodies. I was particularly disappointed when I thought that we could only witness those penguins from a distance until I realised that we can actually see them at a much closer view when we walked back to the centre via the bridges.

As the sun set and the day got darker, we left the place and headed to the nearest mall to buy some groceries as we planned to cook spaghetti for our dinner. Well, it was indeed much cheaper to cook yourself compared to dining in the restaurants. I also took the opportunity to browse through some local products there and asked my friends about their favourite Australian products that were only available in Australia. My friends then recommended me to buy Lamington. It is an Australian dessert that consists of squares or rectangles of sponge cake traditionally coated with chocolate sauce and dessicated coconut. In addition, there are also a myriad versions of Lamington where it is served as two halves with a layer of cream or jam such as strawberry, orange, raspberry and the likes in between. We called it a day after finishing our dinner and played some card games.