BLOG 18
Day 78
Tuesday 28 March. Sunny and 22ºC. Slightly cooler today, but still pleasant. We had kangaroo steaks and sausages last night for supper, by the way. The meat is leaner than steak with a slightly stronger flavour, though not as strong as venison. It is best eaten rare (according to Derek) because it can be very tough if well done. We enjoyed it, and it gave us a spring in our step today.
Today, we are off, first, to a Koala Park to see the – er – koalas. When we saw these creatures in Ballarat they were in a sort of zoo and were in captivity; here on Phillip Island the koalas are free in a large nature reserve, so our visit turned into a game of I-spy and hunt-the-koala. Actually it was very interesting, as there were boardwalks high in the treetops so that you could see the koalas close to. Koalas are to be found only in the eastern parts of Australia and, as marsupials, they carry their young in a pouch. Unlike kangaroos however, their pouches are on their backs, not their fronts. When born, the joey is absolutely tiny: about the size of a man’s thumbnail, and it grows from that size while in the pouch and suckling. I think I mentioned earlier that they survive on five types of eucalyptus leaves, grazing or snacking for about four hours a day and conserving energy (i.e. sleeping) for the remaining 20 hours. We found about eight koalas in all, some quite close so we got some good photographs. All in all, it was a worthwhile visit.
And so on to Churchill Island, an islet linked to Phillip Island by a low bridge and causeway, and now owned by the Australian National Trust. There was an ancient homestead on the island, with several demonstrations such as milking, sheep shearing, whip cracking and sheepdogs. It was very pleasant in the sunshine, with the sea all around and we managed to see the sheep shearing demonstration right through. It was most impressive, not least because the sheep was quite large (estimated 100 kg) and seemed very unwieldy to control. The record for shearing a complete sheep is, apparently 45 seconds though two to three minutes is more the norm. As to whip cracking, well, I can get that any night of the week.
We took a break after that as we were off to see the ‘Penguin Parade’ at 1900.
Well, at 1830 we duly mustered for The Penguin Parade aka The Great Australian Con Trick. This event took place at a beach near The Nobbies (see Blog 17) and it soon became apparent, as we drove there, that the entire island was going too. Bearing in mind that this natural phenomenon takes place every single night of the year at sunset, that is quite some revenue coming in at $AUS25 a pop. There was a large modern exhibition building at the Penguin Centre and it was heaving with people, mainly Japanese bussed in from Melbourne. There was the inevitable shop, and this was selling Penguin Everything: I noted Penguin Towels, Penguin Sweaters, Penguin Ponchos, Penguin Pens, Penguin Books and Penguin-in-your-favourite-football-team-strip. There was even Penguin Face Cream (though why you would want to smell of fish was beyond me). Of course, there were also the many forms of penguin cuddly toy, and more variations of penguin products too many to list without sending you to sleep. Jane was persuaded not to buy our son (aged 38) a cuddly penguin in near-Sunderland football colours.
We passed through this commercial mêlée with some haste and out onto an extensive boardwalk system that led over gently sloping cliffs down to a shore. A ranger was holding a stuffed penguin to show the children, and Jane was in raptures. Must have a photograph with the penguin, and stroke it (which she and Laura did). Then she started burbling how lovely it was to hold a real penguin.
“No dear, it’s dead”, I said.
“But, it’s real”.
“It’s stuffed”, I said, thinking that this was becoming more Pythonesque by the minute.
“Well, yes”, says Jane, “but it is real. It feels lovely”.
Can’t win.
At the shore, concrete tiered seating had been created, and this stretched from the low cliffs down to the beach. Here we sat, with perhaps three hundred Japanese. It was like the Sands of Iwo Jima down there. And we sat, and we sat. We gazed at the sand, the waves, the lighthouse and the rocks, then the waves, the sand, the rocks and the lighthouse. The Japanese yabbered constantly and took pictures of themselves. Photography was banned because the flash upsets the penguins, but the Japanese ignored all that (no speak English). Derek and I reckoned that a good nudge with a cricket bat would improve their comprehension significantly. The light faded and the wind grew cold. Twilight came and went, the stars came out, and the lighthouse started to flash. The demarcation between sea and land became vague. I half expected John Wayne to land in the surf with a battalion of Sea Bees. Finally, Jane pointed to the sea:
“Is that one?”.
“No it’s a rock I think”.
“How about that – it’s moving”.
“I think that’s a seagull”.
Silence, apart from the yabbering Japanese. My left buttock grew numb and I changed sides. My whole body was beginning to stiffen into rigor mortis. Finally, finally, after sitting for an hour and a half, we could vaguely see tiny movement way off to the right, in the gloom, among the rocks. Up came the tiny penguins, probably about 300 metres away to one side, barely visible in the dark and only distinguishable thanks to their white fronts. They came absolutely nowhere near us and disappeared inland. We sat a bit longer.
“Is that it then?” I said.
Apparently it was. The thing is – and this is pretty obvious when given close consideration – the Fairy Penguin is the smallest penguin in the world, standing typically only 8″ high: about the size of a herring gull. It was always going to be hard to see one in the distance and the dark, or to distinguish it from an ordinary seabird. Three hundred adults with a sprinkling of children had just sat for an hour and a half in the freezing cold to look at the sea and a lighthouse.
Of course, there was a bit more, for we could see the penguins outside their burrows from the boardwalk, and this we did: blundering around in the dark and accidentally treading on Japanese and boisterous children in the process. Derek and I found a penguin that wasn’t moving much, but Derek reckoned that it was just that the battery had gone flat. Jane, meanwhile, had entered the Inn of the Seventh Happiness, aided and abetted by her chum. There was much “oohing” and “ahhing”. At last, Derek and I managed to drag the girls away, screaming and kicking, so that we could have our supper. I could only settle Jane with (false) promises of ice cream and possums. As far as Derek and I were concerned, we had seen enough bleeding penguins for a lifetime and had consumed one bottle of red wine in our imaginations already; in our minds, we were about to start on a second.
Back at the ranch, we took a hasty, but filling, repast and consumed that promised two bottles of red wine. All agreed that it had been an interesting exercise; all agreed that we had been there, done that, ignored the T-shirt. That night, Jane slept with a smile on her face. The real power of a man is the size of the smile of the woman lying next to him (I read that on the back of a matchbox).
Day 79
Wednesday 29 March. 26ºC, mostly sunshine and very pleasantly warm. Crikey: only eight days before we leave Australia.
Today we visited Pyramid Rock, a headland halfway along the island’s southern shore between The Nobbies (west) and Cape Woolamai (east). This proved to be a fine clifftop viewpoint with some majestic views of the basalt rocks and a seething cauldron of a sea. Access along the cliffs was along a (now common) railed boardwalk, which eased my acrophobia somewhat. It was a good, if wild, spot and we stood for some time just taking in the constantly changing seascape. I tried out a composting toilet for the first time and found it a memorable experience, best not often repeated; it was alright for a man, I suppose, but I wouldn’t have like to use it as a woman: heaven knows what might come out of that black hole when you are sitting on it.
We moved on from there to the small Purple Hen winery for yet more wine tasting , and there encountered an owner who clearly had failed both the Customer Relations Course and the subsequent attempt to get her money back. From the moment we walked in, it was made apparent that we were a nuisance, and when she had asked us (Brits) our views of Brexit it was even more apparent that we had given the wrong answer. I did think, at one point, that I should have prepared myself a service brief on the topic so that I could give informed responses to her interrogation. I was particularly taken by her views that older people should not be given the vote as they would not have to endure the consequences of their decision (define ‘older’); and by the fact that the majority of illegal immigrants in Australia were British. Tips one, two and three when operating a business: be pleasant and welcoming; keep off politics, especially the politics of another country; and don’t insult the tourists. I feel it is to our credit as disinterested wine drinkers that we still bought some of her wine despite her attitude: a pétillant Blanc de Blanc and a Pinot Gris. We passed on the red wine as we weren’t having fish and chips that night and could, in any case, buy cheaper vinegar elsewhere.
After Mrs Charm, we moved on to Rhyll, another town on the island just to see how the other half lived. We did not quite make the town as we found a delightful seafront restaurant where we could stock up on calories, quaff a little wine, and generally soak up the atmosphere. This proved to be an excellent find, and we sat outside on the veranda with some good food and an ice bucket containing a 2016 bottle of dry Stump Jump Riesling from the D’arenberg Estate in the Maclaren Vale of South Australia (pretentious? Moi?).
A good snooze would have been in order after this jamboree, but Laura was keen to take us to another nature reserve that epitomised The Bush, so we set off there for a good ramble. Wildlife was remarkably scarce and we saw nothing other than trees; I dare say that the animals had taken our advice and taken a siesta. Halfway round, Jane needed to take a tinkle, but she was a little wary of venturing into the undergrowth for that purpose, lest she should tread on something poisonous. My helpful suggestion that, if she heard a hiss while in mid process (as it were), then she should move hastily away did not seem to provide the assurance intended. Anyway, she got on with it reluctantly after we moved on, and I had the overpowering urge to sneak up behind her, and tickle her bottom with a leafy twig. Fortunately, better counsel held sway and I managed to contain myself, as is evidenced by the fact that I am still alive to write this here today.
To complete the David Attenborough Experience, we finally visited a wetlands area on the coast. Here we saw how different plants adapted to marshlands and coastal waters. This visit was better than the previous one as it demonstrated how mangroves grow entirely in sea water, their roots filtering out the salt which is later excreted on the leaves and bark. Again, we walked on well set-out boardwalks that took us right into the mangrove swamp. We saw a couple of wallabies on the way back, and that made up for the lack of animals elsewhere. Wallabies, by the way, are smaller than kangaroos, are almost black, and have nicer faces than their larger cousins.
Finally, back to the happy homestead for a sensible cup of tea and a snooze. Well, Jane had the snooze, I stayed awake as I had the First Dogwatch.
Day 80
Thursday 30 March. We awoke to rain and low temperatures, 12ºC. I don’t think this is a spin off from the cyclone harassing Queensland at the moment, but rather the early signs of the Australian autumn. Singapore beckons, I think.
Owing to the weather, we sat indoors and read books for most of the day. We also found the heater and set that in operation. Finally, by mid afternoon, the weather had settled and Jane and I set out for a stroll along the beach; we were suffering from cabin fever and desperately needed to get out. The tide was nearly in this time, and the strip of beach was quite narrow. Jane reckoned the tide was coming in, but I assured her – speaking as a seasoned mariner born in a seaside town – that the tide was ebbing (a term we sailors use when the tide is going out). This was evidenced by the strand of damp hard sand at the waterline. We duly set off westward, dodging the waves (we had kept our shoes on) and pausing every five seconds for Jane to pick up seashells and other assorted molluscs. It was a fair old slog, as it is when you walk on sand, but quite pleasant in the fresh breeze and sunshine. After a while, we did notice that the strand of beach was getting narrower, both in front and behind us, and it became apparent that the tide was ebbing in the wrong direction. I explained this to Jane as being an exceptional phenomenon, unique to the Southern Hemisphere, that was caused by the resultant of lunar forces with the Coriolis acceleration concomitant with the Earth’s rotation, occurring whenever there were tidal flows of high Reynolds Number. I think I got away with it as, by the time I had finished, she had found a dead seal to look at.
We managed to get a mile or two along the beach before our way was blocked by a freshwater creek and we had to turn back. We could have taken off our shoes and waded, of course, but we weren’t wearing shorts and I did not want to get my only pair of trousers wet. I remarked loudly, on our return journey, that the tide was now flooding – a term we sailors use when the tide is coming in. Jane gave me a knowing ‘told-you-so’ look that meant that my lecture in fluid mechanics had washed over the top of her head. Women: why are they always so right?
For supper on our last night, we returned to the RSL, where we ate a hearty meal among the pokies, small arms and Bofors guns. Off tomorrow, back to Geelong.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 