Phillip Island Australia Info

Phillip Island Australia

The screech of a microphone being turned on sliced through the bus and we all grabbed for our ears. The driver patted it a few times to make sure it was on and then coughed: 'Sorry about that, guys. All right then, welcome to the Oz Experience. Over the next three days I'll be taking you through the Victorian Alps, through the Snowy Mountain National Park to Canberra and finally all the way to Sydney. We'll be stopping at Phillip Island tonight, camping at Amaroo Park, the hostel there. Do any of you guys want to book a trip to see the penguins?' Phillip Island is famous for its penguins. There is a permanent colony at Summerland Beach and every night hundreds of tourists congregate to see the 'penguin parade' as the birds make their way from the rocks and the sea to roost.
Everyone on the bus murmured that they were interested in going and a sheet of paper was passed around for us to tick off our names, to indicate that we wanted to go.
It didn't surprise me that the colony had been cordoned off and the Island administrators were charging $20 entry fee. Part of me rebelled - this was nature in its element, no one had the right to charge me to see it. But I'd only been on the road for less than an hour - it was a bit soon to start causing trouble.
I bit my tongue, ticked my name off on the list and handed along my hard-earned cash. These penguins had better be worth it; never mind a penguin parade, for $20 I'd be expecting a Mardi Gras.
Most of the people on the bus appeared to be travelling by themselves or in groups of two. I'd had a good look around before we left Melbourne, trying to guess where everyone was from -- I was certain one guy was Mediterranean and one of the girls was Dutch: she had the shining blond hair and piercing blue eyes I knew where so common there; as for the others they could have been from anywhere.
As expected every one was initially quite shy with each other but it didn't take too long before people began chatting. I was pleased to discover that there was a good cross-section of nationalities on the bus. I had been right about the Mediterranean guy -- he was from Spain. And the girl with the blond locks? Yep, Dutch. As for the others, there were a couple of Swedish girls and four Canadians but the rest were from the UK and Ireland.
I got chatting to a Welsh girl called Gwen, a doctor who now lived in London and who had been working in a hospital in Perth in Western Australia to relieve staff shortages there. She told me that medical staff were so thin on the ground in Australia that they were actively advertising in the UK for doctors to come out to fill the gaps, and were offering generous incentives to encourage applicants.
Otteline, the Dutch girl, was from Amsterdam. I had taken a trip there at the beginning of the previous year with a couple of friends I had been sharing an apartment with in Melbourne for the past six months -- so I knew a little of the city's geography. I mentioned a few of the places we'd visited to Otteline and she looked impressed. 'I thought all tourists in Amsterdam go to the drugs shops only?' she said.
Her English was excellent. One of the things that amazed and embarrassed me as I travelled around Australia was the number of non-English speakers I met who had a grasp of the language; most native English speakers found it difficult to get by in their own language, never mind a foreign one. 'No, not all of them want drugs,' I replied. 'In fact one of the guys I went with knows some Dutch people, so we spent time with them seeing the real Amsterdam.' 'This is good, I think.' Otteline nodded in approval. 'Most foreigners don't brather to see the real Amsterdam.' She paused for a second, frowning, then looked at me questioningly: 'Brather? Is it correct?' I smiled at the mistake: 'I think you mean bother. Most foreigners don't bother to see the real Amsterdam.' 'Ah. My English is not perfect, I think.'
'Your English is excellent,' I reassured her. 'It's certainly a lot better than my Dutch.' She grinned. 'Thank you. Do you go to Sydney?'
'Yes,' I said 'I'm staying on the bus until we get to Sydney.'
'Good - I teach you some Dutch.'

We arrived on Phillip Island around five o'clock. The sun was setting so time was short for us to get to the penguin parade. We quickly made our way to the hostel.
The rooms at Amaroo Park YHA are actually large tents with beds for up to six people in each. Those of us going to the parade picked a tent and dumped our bags without unpacking, then jumped on the bus as it trundled up the drive, on it's way to the beach.
It took just over twenty minutes to get to Summerland Beach on the opposite coast of the Island, and when we arrived the place was crawling with life. Japanese life, that is. And every one of them had a camera round their neck.
We'd been warned before we arrived that visitors weren't allowed to take photographs at the parade, for the sake of protecting the penguins; obviously no one had bothered to mention this fact to the Japanese. As I clambered off the bus I had to push my way through an oriental picket line to get to the seating area, and around the necks of every one of them hung a pristine device, flashes at the ready. Wardens standing nearby had clearly decided long ago that trying to stop them from taking shots was a futile task.
As the sun began to set and the cold wind started to blow in off the ocean, we strained our eyes to see the small shapes that began appearing from the waves. A few of the more adventurous ones darted out of the tide and ran up the beach towards their nests; most of them, though, were a little more timid: creeping slowly out of the sea while looking for predators, then running back into the safety of the waves at the slightest noise or sudden movement. The penguins were comical, but the already fading light soon cloaked the beach in darkness and it was difficult to see anything move on the beach. People got up to leave, blocking the views of those who wished to remain, and the general demeanour of those remaining changed from one of fun to annoyance. I could understand the sentiment – by now it was impossible to see anything but the backside of the person standing in front of our faces.
I and my colleagues decided to give it up, and made our way back to the bus for the hostel

There were four of us in our tent at the YHA: myself, Gwen, an English girl called Kat, and a Canadian guy called Steve. The sun had set while we were at the penguins and out here by the tents, far from any artificial lighting, and the night sky glistened. I stood outside with my neck craned to the sky, trying to pick out the few constellations I was able to recognise in the Southern Hemisphere. A dark shadow fell across the ground in front of me and I turned to see Steve looking up as well. 'What are you looking at?'
I pointed into the heavens: 'Orion. See it? Over there. It looks a little different here from the way we'd be used to seeing it, though.'
Steve turned his head, almost resting it on his shoulder.
'Oh yeah - it's on its side. Cool.'
'Yeah. And have you noticed that the moon is upside down here too?'

He laughed. 'No, I have to say that that is something I had not noticed.' Steve was going to be travelling all the way to Sydney as well. He was actually on the final leg of his journey around Australia and was heading back to Sydney to meet up with some friends before travelling back to Canada.
We stood talking for a while; Steve mentioned that there was supposed to be a pub not too far away called The Isle of White and we decided to head for it. We bumped into Otteline and another girl as we headed out of the campsite, and they stopped for a chat.
'You are escaping?' asked Otte.
'Ha ha ha! Well, in a way.' I replied. 'We are going to explore the town and try and find a pub.'
'A pub? There will be beer there?' Her eyes glowed with hope.
'I hope so.' I grinned.
'Ah. We come too.'
Amaroo Park YHA is actually on the outskirts of Cowes, the main town on Phillip Island. Strolling through its streets I was surprised at its size. Before coming here, I had expected a barren, uninhabited island with perhaps a few huts, a youth hostel and -- undoubtedly -- a Penguin Parade Gift Shop. But this was an actual town, one of many on the island, where people lived, worked and went about their everyday lives.
There were estate agents, clothes shops, mechanics, restaurants, accountants and supermarkets. And a Penguin Parade Gift Shop too, of course. I couldn't see there being that much to do for anyone staying beyond an extended weekend here, but nevertheless I was impressed.
We passed a fish and chip shop and Steve darted inside for a bite to eat. I had already dined on sandwiches packed for me that morning before I left Melbourne, and the girls had already eaten too. We walked slowly down the steep hill that led to the shorefront so that Steve could catch us up; he appeared not long after, his bag of chips bouncing in his hands as he ran.
The Isle of White was at the bottom of the hill. It had a distinctly British look about it and I couldn't help wondering in the back of my mind if there wasn't a town also called Cowes on the actual Isle of White back home. As it turned out, there was -- a large plaque announced as much by the door. Inside, the pub was clean if reasonably empty. A long wooden bar stretched from one side to the other, and tables were spaced around the room in neat, parallel rows. I smiled at the sight of a pool table in a corner, but there was something else in the bar that immediately caught my eye -- something that undoubtedly caught the attention of every single person the first time they walked into the pub. Stretched along the wall, for the entire length of the building, was a mounted shark. Defying all gravity -- to quote Douglas Adams -- it hung in the air in exactly the same way bricks don't. It was enormous. Otte couldn't believe her eyes. She grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed to it, her mouth trying to find the words.
'Look at this!'
I was looking at it, and I couldn't believe my eyes either. I mean who caught this thing -- Robert Shaw? Steve was already at the bar, clawing at the barman for information. 'How big is it? When was it caught? How much did it weigh? Did they find anything inside? What happened to the man who caught it? Was this thing caught in the bay?' The barman grinned and rambled off a list of answers. He'd obviously been telling the same stories for years to every new person who came through the door of his pub, and it was to his credit that he managed to tell them again that night without looking bored. In fact he was so full of enthusiasm that I immediately became suspicious. We all stood in rapt attention anyway; eyes wide, supping at the pots he kept refilling for us as his tales grew wilder and his voice rose louder. The shark had been caught in the bay, and it was still one of the largest sharks ever to be caught in Australian waters. The guy who'd caught it had become something of an instant celebrity and was still living off the fame all these years later. Steve asked another few questions and I drained the remaining beer from my pot.
It was so dark inside the tent when we got back later that night that we crashed around trying to find our respective beds. Gwen and Kat murmured in protest and we began to creep on our toes, making more noise than we'd been making before.
Lying in bed, the silence was absolute in the darkness. People who spend their lives living in a city get used to city noises, and they become a comfort. Pulling the covers tight, it took an age before sleep finally found me.

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