Abuse your passport

The cottage at Paynesville was on an enormous lake, and the view from the living room looked out on the small waves. It’s been windy, so white caps had formed, framed by the swaying trees that stretched from the cabin to the shore.

Before we left today, we called home to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. We’ll be returning home in a few days, and I’m filled with trepidation; there’s been a time change since we left and late fall weather has set in. We’ll be coming home to short, cold days. Having been gone all of November, we’ve succeeded in staving off the gloom of winter. It’s not been less than 70 degrees and mostly sunny since touching ground in Fiji. I only wore pants for the first time last night, when we encountered our first heavy rain.

To get to Paynesville, we had to drive a portion of the Great Alpine Road. The name brings to mind pine trees, aspen, mountains, chalets, etc. Although beautiful and sparsely populated, the scenery still included a variety of gum trees, shrubs, and grasses. As we came down into the valleys, ferns provided additional greenery. The drive was gorgeous; there’s been nothing but incredible scenery, since we started down the coast. We stopped in Port Albert for fish and chips, which you would think would be simply. I steeped up to the counter and ordered fish and chips. I think he said, “Gummy.” I panicked, so I asked what her recommended. He hesitated and said, “We have gummy, rock, ling, or blue grenadier.” I have never heard of these fish. He seemed to sense my confusion and offered, “Rock is a nice fish,” so we had rock fish, and he was right; it was good.

We drove into Woolimai to check into our Air BnB and have a rest before moving on to the Nobbies. This overlook, on the southwest point of Phillip Island, is home to hundreds of fur seals, as well as dramatic ocean views, but we enjoyed the drive out to the point more than the destination itself. Much of the island is protected, so our drive was like wandering through a zoo. We found several echidnas (think large hedgehog crossed with a platypus), wallaby, and lots of Cape Barren geese whose bills look the same color as a glow-in-the-dark toy. The overlook was windy and cool but the crashing waves below were mesmerizing to watch. We saw a seal playing with an unlucky fish, tossing it around and diving into the water with it in its mouth. As we stood on the boardwalk, it began to sprinkle, so we loaded into the car to drive to the penguin parade.

The parade was our sole reason for coming to Phillip Island. There is a colony of about 32,000 little penguins (previously known as fairy penguins) that roost here. The sea birds are the smallest penguin and stand no taller than 18 inches high. They are a dark blue on the top half of their body, if you look at them long way from head to tail, and their belly is white. This serves them well in the ocean, making it difficult for raptors in the air to see them on the surface and camouflaging them from ocean predators, looking up from deeper waters. The birds spend about 80% of their time in the ocean, but several of them come ashore each night to feed their young, breed, etc. They usually come to shore in bunches, as there is safety in numbers. We purchased tickets to sit on the bleachers on the beach and watch their transition from sea to land at dusk.

We arrived at the welcome center and the rain picked up, so we stayed indoors as long as possible. By the time we needed to go to the beach, the rain was coming down fairly hard. We were lucky that the Air BnB had an umbrella, and we had also brought some plastic bags to sit on. We plunked down on the first row and watched the rivers of water pour down the stairs. It looked a lot like Red Rocks this summer sans the hail. We hunkered under the umbrella for a while and then, as if on cue, the rain stopped and a penguin appeared. The first one was a brave soul, exiting the water all by himself. As we watched, small batches, 4-8 at a time, waddled up the sand to the bush. We watched the birds for about 30 minutes before Kim asked the ranger a question. After we talked, she suggested where we should walk to get a much better view of the birds. Her instructions did not disappoint. We followed the boardwalk around to the south and found heaps of little penguins. The waddled past us, some heading inland and some climbing the steep hill, heading toward their burrows. There was a fat chick not far from us, who cried every time a penguin went by. Its high-pitched chirping made it sound as if it was starving, but it was clear it hadn’t missed too many regurgitated meals. We lingered until they asked us to leave. We hadn’t’ driven more than a couple kilometers from the penguins and the skies opened up again, pouring water in buckets. We felt very grateful to have had such a fortuitous break from the rain.Read more