Phillip Island

I think that Phillip Island should be twined with the Isle of Wight. We went there because Claire said that is was named after me and everybody knows that the Isle of Wight is my favourite place in the whole world. It’s only about 90 minutes drive from Berwick and quite a picturesque route too. It joins the mainland by a bridge between San Remo and Newhaven. We started our circuit of this little pretty island by going the north route around to Rhyll which is a tiny sleepy little village with only one post office/shop and one restaurant called the foreshore which looked quite nice. Our second stop was Cowes which is the only real town on the island and home to the first hotel which opened in 1870 called the isle of wight. The Aboriginal tribe based on Phillip Island were the Bunurong tribe. The bridge which is there now opened in 1971 replacing the old bridge which was not very strong and tourists on coaches had to walk across the bridge and trucks were limited to 6 tons.

The main industry here seems to be tourism and real estate, I couldn’t resist taking this photo of a house for sale which says, “For Sale House cottage very liveable renovate, detonate or build your dream”. There are so many pretty beaches around this little island and only a small space for me to put pictures. Carrying along the north side is Ventnor which has long empty beaches most of the way to the end where The Nobbies are. The Nobbies are natural rock formations at the extreme west end of the island where sea birds seem to nest everywhere. The rocks to the side of the Nobbies are home to about 16,000 fur seals but apparently they don’t come out on Tuesdays. There is also a natural blow hole just to the south of the Nobbies which blows and splutters when the waves are just right. The south coast of the island continues with more lovely beaches but there are more people because the surf is better on this side. There are hardly any villages to speak of along this whole stretch just natural landscape which is lovely for us because we don’t see that much in England unless you go to the new forest or Scotland.

Also along the north side is a penguin parade where the smallest penguins in the world and every evening they waddle up the beach to their sand dune burrows. Unfortunately we didn’t stay long enough to see this parade but I think it’s a bit off that they have closed the area off and charge $20 each to watch this natural phenomenon and I bet the penguins don’t get a cut either.

Just a little further on is the Phillip island GP circuit where the superbike World Championship and the Australian Motorcycle GP are held every year. Come on Valentino! There is also another Koala sanctuary over here where you can endlessly cuddle the little creatures to death. You can get a scenic helicopter tour around the islands, there are ferries that you can catch here and there, cruises that you can do around the island and to the neighbouring French island that is a state park and has no roads but it does have a healthy wild population of Koalas but I’m not sure about Kangaroos. For a little island I can’t recommend it enough there is so much to see, especially the Nobbies which are a sight for sore eyes. Also they have no speed cameras and we didn’t see any police men all day either. There were quite a few places to eat here and there but it seems that most don’t open until the evening. The best places to find restaurants are in Cowes and San Remo on the mainland where they seem to have a good choice. However I made tuna salad with chilli and Aioli sandwiches so we didn’t get to eat on the island today. I’m sure I must be loosing loads of weight. Oh, and another thing; they seem to vary the prices over here according to the time of week. Petrol, groceries and everything seems to go up on a Friday for the weekends then come back down again on a Monday. I have seen the LPG ranging between 52.7cents a litre to 74.9 cents a litre. The wine we normally buy for $14.95 was down to $11.95 today and that’s for 5 litres. I don’t get how you can get 5 litres of very palatable wine for $12 and two small beers will cost around $14 in a bar; the only thing that can happen is that the bar trade will be wiped out or you will start to get illegal drink houses like happened in prohibition.