After lots of long driving days, leaving Melbourne was a welcome relief knowing that we’d only be driving about two hours to Phillip Island, our stop for the day. Considering our last couple weeks, it was understandable that after getting to Phillip Island at noon, Jaz asked me in a rather stunned voice whether that was really all for the day. Upon arriving to the island (which is connected by a rather short bridge to the mainland), we made a quick detour to what’s becoming my new favorite location, the I. The I (as I call them) are the information centers in most touristy or larger Australian towns, and they provide lots of brochures and maps that I rely on to get around towns and find all the attractions. We were able to buy tickets there too for the most popular attractions on the island.

First on the list of the Phillip Island attractions was Panny’s Amazing World of Chocolate, which you know I wasn’t going to miss. It was a little overpriced, and after the size of the free sample of chocolate, I was starting to think I’d be a little disappointed. There was a neat hands-on explanation about the process of making chocolate, and then we saw several large chocolate sculptures. After that, there was the chocolate fountain, which pours massive amounts of chocolate every couple minutes, but my favorite part of that room was the robot that dispensed pieces of chocolate. Since the attraction was fairly empty, Jaz and I spent a good chunk of time just pressing the buttons to get free chocolate. I was also pretty proud of myself because they had a wall full of 36 jars of chocolate ingredients to guess, and I only got two wrong. And they totally didn’t count because we don’t have passion fruit at home. Then there was a machine that you could draw whatever you wanted in chocolate, it went down a conveyor belt, and you got a chocolate design to eat. So all in all, I think we ate enough chocolate to make the ticket price worthwhile.

Phillip Island is rather small, so the next attraction was only a 5 minute drive up the road to Churchill Island. I wouldn’t really call it an island since it seemed to be attached to the island by a boggy-like area. I can’t really say I enjoyed Churchill Island, it had a working heritage farm, but it was nothing compared to Greenfield Village. Moving on from that, we went to the Koala Conservation Center, our second time seeing koalas in Australia. This location was really cool because they had a boardwalk that went up around the trees at the koala height, so we were quite close to them. We even followed one koala as he ate in a tree, moved on to the next tree and then settled in a final tree with a mother and baby koala. Now all that’s left on my list for koalas is to hold one! It was hard not to want to pet them when they were that close because they looked so cuddly.

The Penguin Parade is by far the biggest attraction on Phillip Island, and while it’s not the only place in Australia where this occurs, it has one of the largest populations of little penguins that come ashore in one location. Little penguins, which stand just over a foot tall, fish during the day, and then in the evening come ashore to sleep. Because of their size, they come across the beach in waves of 20 to 30 penguins, so they gather out in the ocean until everyone is ready to return, usually right after the sun sets. I was a little disappointed with how commercialized it was, but in a location that gets almost 700 penguins a night, it makes sense that they’d have to build it up just to protect the penguins from tourists. We got there early enough to get a front row seat, and then froze in the chilly wind for the next hour and a half waiting for the penguins to arrive. They were well worth it though, because they were super cute to watch running across the beach to the grassy protected areas where they’ve built their nests. Sadly, pictures are not allowed, they don’t want flashes disturbing the penguins and having them be too scared to come into land. The coolest part happened after they landed though, because the conservation has built a boardwalk all down the path to the beach, so you could follow the penguins as they waddled to their nests. And since we were there at just the right time, we got to see cute, even littler fuzzy babies getting fed! I really wanted to take one home, because this size penguin would fit perfectly in my bathtub.

Our busy day on Phillip Island was followed by a rather long driving day to Lakes Entrance. The drive was very scenic though, because it runs through the Gippsland Lakes, the largest freshwater lakes system in Australia. We made a couple stops along 90 Mile Beach, which is the fourth longest beach in the world. I’m not sure if it was the fact that it wasn’t quite summer yet, but we were both shocked by the fact we didn’t see a single person up and down the whole beach. The wind was a little chilly, but it was still a nice day to be out for a walk on gorgeous beaches.

Next up on the driving agenda was Australia’s capital, Canberra. Even after knowing that it was only chosen as capital to stop Sydney and Melbourne’s rivalry, and was meticulously planned out specifically to be the capital city, I was expecting it to be a big city just like any of the others we had been too. Instead, the city of 300,000+ manages to feel even smaller because of the ridiculously wide streets, confusing layout (it’s done in concentric circles), and massive green spaces. Normally I’d like a lot of green, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting from a nation’s capital. We didn’t make it to Canberra quite as early as I had planned, and so only had time for one national landmark. Since I’m not a huge museum fan, we chose the Australian War Memorial. I was very impressed with the parts of it we saw, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen dioramas in a museum, but they had some very cool ones depicting battles from WWI. The World War II section was especially interesting for me because I tend to forget that Australia was bombed by the Japanese, and lived in fear of being outright invaded during that time. Finally, at closing time, there was a bagpiper that played a funeral song at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier next to the eternal flame which was quite moving.

Leaving Canberra was a bit sad, because it was the conclusion of our road trip across Australia, we only had two more short driving days to go to get to Sydney.