Philip Island – 1/9/2013
Jan 11th, 2013 by admin
Over night, the skies opened and the deluge. Camping would have been at least as bad as we feared, probably worse. The storm didn’t last long but it did collapse the heat wave. Of course, the heat wave was now replaced with intermittent showers driven by a cold, damp fierce wind. Oz, the land of extremes.
Up and out of the motel and on to the “Prom”. There’s only one other road out of Foster and leads to the road into Wilsons Promontory. On the way down, the wind is blowing pretty good and there are occasional showers. We cross into the National Park and maybe 10 kilometers in we pass a car stranded on the side of the road. We stop to see if we can help. (It’s early and we haven’t seen much traffic.)
It’s young German couple and their car has overheated. They were traveling with another car that has gone to find help. We tell them that we are going to see the “Prom” an dif they still need help on our way back we’ll stop and do what we can.
We get to the end of the road and stop at the information center. There’s a campground here that, like all the other campgrounds we’ve seen on the coast, is packed to overflowing. We head back up a side road to a parking area that is the trailhead for a trail leading o the top of the peak of the peninsula. The views are astounding but the weather is bad. It’s cold and windy. Back to the mainland.
As we get closer to the park exit, the Germans are still there, stranded. Their friends are nowhere to be seen. We stop and open the hood. They tell us that yesterday they had a leak in the cooling system but that had been fixed. I open the radiator. Bone dry. Then the girl who owns the car tells us that there is water in the passenger compartment. It looks like a failed heater core.
We put some water that we had in their radiator, make sure that the heated controls are all oin the “Off” position and tell to drive back toward civilization with us following. That gets us about 5 miles before the engine is overheating again. What water we had put into the radiator had found its way through the heater core and into the passenger footwell.
They stop. We hook up a tow strap and leave. We go about 100 feet at the Germans are stopping, waving furiously. They had forgotten to put the key in the ignition so the steering was locked. Unlock the steering, put the gear shifter in neutral, set out again.
We tow them out of the park and stop at the first petrol station outside the park, about 10 kilometers from where we started towing. Their friends are there waiting. They have already asked the petrol station where the nearest repair is and that turns out to be Foster, another 25 kilometers. Back to towing.
The girl driving is in Australia on a work visa, most recently picking fruit. The German boy is her boyfriend he to visit her for Christmas. He seems very academic and very uninclined to get his hands dirty with the car. The Germans in the other car, a girl and two boys, are also friends on work visas. They’ve also been picking fruit and have that “lived in the car too long” look. Her boyfriend really stands out and looks like he won’t be too disappointed when he has to retrun to Germany in a couple of weeks.
The German girl who is driving, or rather, steering the car is doing great but when we get back to Foster, she’s done. We leave them at a repair shop in Foster and head on our way. Off to Philip Island.
We’re not far from Philip Island and it only takes a couple of hours to get there. The weather has improved dramatically if you consider sunny skies and howling winds that seem to have come directly from Antarctica a dramatic improvement. We stop at the first Info kiosk for directions.
A very nice woman gives us directions to the Nobbies, pretty much land’s end on Philip Island where there is a fur seal rookery and nesting areas for sea birds. I also want to stop at the Philip Island Race Track which I’ve seen many times on the tv in the States. It hosts both the V8 Supercars (see Bathurst post) and FIA motorcycles. But the main reason for coming here is to see the Penguin Parade. More on the penguins in a bit.
The Nobbies are just the rocky end of the island but what an end it is. The parking area is at the Visitor Center and there is a boardwalk that leads down the sea side of the poing through the breeding nests of the different sea birds that nest here. Currently, it’s mostly silver gulls who make an enormous racket. Gulls are like that.
The boardwalk leads down to just above the cliff overlooking the crashing surf below. The view is spectacular. The sky has turned sunny with big, puffy cumulus clouds and the wind is strong out of the South (it would be the north if we were in the other hemisphere.) The wind is strong and cold but it’s responsible for the crashing surf and the unbelievable views. Photo heaven. After, an hour or so, it’s back to the hotel.
We check in, do some wash and catch up on email. John takes a nap. I just hang out. We have to be at the Penguin Parade by 7:45 (they expect the penguins to start coming ashore at about 9 to 9:15.) Soon, back in the car and out the highway to the Parade parking lots.
The Penguin Parade is the nightly return of the “fairie” penguins (actually known as little penguins) every night after sunset. The name is wholly appropriate: they are about 18 inches tall, weigh in at about 2 pounds and, uniquely, they are actually dark blue and white unlike all other penguin species that are black and white. They are the smallest of all penguin species and, needless to say, are so cute they all look like penguin plushes. It’s actually surprising when they move.
They leave their burrows in the sand dunes every morning before dawn to fish all day before returning en masse after sunset. Then they have a to hike back up the dunes to their burrows, not a mean feat if your legs are only about 4 inches long.
The Aussies have a knack for putting a ticket kiosk between you and the attraction you are trying to see. This is that knack to its extreme, logical end. You but a ticket to enter the area for 22 AUD, drive to the car park, hike to the entrance/ticket taking gates into, what else, the gift shop, wander aimlessly in the crowd trying to find the exit of the gift shop and the entrance to the boardwalk that leads to the concrete stadium seating the face the surf where the penguins come in.
At first, it seems pretty tacky but after you think about it, there’s no way that they could open this up to the public without a very controlled environment. To open it up completely would rapidly destroy the habitat. To close it off, would deny everyone the opportunity to see these lovely birds. The facility claims that 100% of the ticket sales goes to operating the facility which is primarily a research and rescue facility.
Of course, all this kibbutzing ends when the first penguins arrive out of the surf. The crowd in the seats are very quite and polite and because the penguins are so small, they are hard to see unless they arrive in small groups of 3 or 4 or 10. They looks like little bits of flotsam rolling around in the surf backwash until they get their footing in the sand and scurry up to the vegetation at the start of the dunes. Occasionally, the gulls standing on the beach chase them back into the surf and the whole routine starts over again.
Soon, they are coming back all along they beach. The small time that they are exposed between the surf and the vegetation is the most dangerous time for the little birds. The gulls aren’t predators, really just nasty neighbors who share the beach for a few minutes every day and they (the gulls) don’t seem to be very happy about even that small time. But as soon as they can do it, the birds are into the brush waddling their way up the dunes along very well worn pathways.
The boardwalks are the best part of this whole attraction. It’s raised 5 to 10 feet above ground level so that it doesn’t interfere with penguin parade back to their burrows. There are lights all along the board walk so that you can see the penguins as they waddle for a distance and then take a break to rest before continuing on to wherever home is for each bird. Some of the birds hike almost all the way to the Center/Gift Shop before heading into the brush to the burrow that it calls home.
It seems like a lot or work for such a short stay before reversing the route and heading back to the water for another day of fishing. But after the hike, the chatter starts. You’ think that after all day in the water and the long hike back to the burrow, they’d just collapse for a few hours of rest but not these guys. As soon as they get back, the chattering starts. Some of it seems territorial but a lot of the noise just seems to be the penguin version of “How’d you day go?”
For about an hour, everyone that was in the seats is now stationed somewhere along the boardwalk unable to stop watching the small birds. Fortunately for the birds, after about 50 minutes about 80% of the birds have returned and the park employees start herding the people back to the Center/Gift Shop. They lights go out and the birds are finally off duty.
Like I said, it’s kind of tacky but it’s a definite must see. Damn, they’re cute.
Obi-wan