Melbourne Holiday Day Four - Seals and More!

Saturday, 23rd November 2013

We have had beautiful sunny and cool weather ever since we arrived.  No rain despite the gloomy forecasts earlier, and we are truly thankful.  Before we start to take the weather for granted, God gave a different view today, with the gloomy skies and light shower greeting us in the morning.  A perfect weather to sleep in if not for the fact that we had a full day ahead of us again... and did I mention that check out time was 10am and not the usual 12pm? 

It's nearing 945am when we finally dragged ourselves and the kids out of bed.  William slept like a log and I'd have relented by just bundling him into the car but the thought of him with unbrushed teeth???  Eeeeeuuu... not for this mummy! 

Hubs and I gobbled down the leftover pizza and shared the kids' yogurt and everyone helped with the fresh milk.   Kids had their ham sandwich. 

We headed to the last park in our list, which was the Koala Conservation Centre.

I love this boy's small-big eyes look.

We sang, "We're going on a bear hunt..." song whilst looking for koalas...

"William!  Pretend you're in a jungle with this background, ok?"

From the boardwalk, we see this little nursery at the bottom.

Looking for koalas is not easy.  First, you must have very good eyesight and that means NO ASTIGMATISM because most of the times you'll need to look up to search amongst the tall trees for little koala bears.  Secondly, you must have good neck muscle for the same reason.  Oh, and I learnt something new... koala is pronounced as "ko-a-la" here, and not "cola" like what we're so used to back home, hehehe.

There was another family around, and they pointed out the koalas to us.  Here's one...

Do you see what I see?  High high up in the tree... a KOALA!!  This is maximum zoom with my S95

A Mummy and Boy Boy shot

We didn't stay long here, because it started to drizzle and we ran our way back to the centre for shelter.  I don't think we missed much anyway, and most importantly, the kids got to see real koalas.

Next stop - The Nobbies.  Now The Nobbies is free... but don't think just because it's free, it's "nothing much" because in my most humble opinion, this is a MUST SEE place in Phillip Island.  The scene is so breathtaking, and you can easily spend hours there.  I was reading on the souvenir book yesterday and realized that there's more to The Nobbies that we did not discover.  Oh well... I guess that calls for a next time... haha...

William enjoyed chasing the birds, Vic was more subdued for whatever reasons.  This girl needs a lot of coaxing, compliments, kind words and more, just to bring her to happy-happy mode.  The boy, on the other hand, takes little to please.  Give him an outdoor and a few birds, and he'll be fine. 

We enjoyed the breeze and the scenery.  Only thing was having to watch out for bird poo - don't step on them, don't accidentally lean on the contaminated fence and pray you're not unlucky enough (or some might say, lucky) to get a fresh dropping on your head! 

Sea gulls resting

Silver gulls are seen during spring and summer

A seagull standing on a fence.  All those poo is not from him. 

Taking a short walk down before heading back up when Kelvin and family arrived

Yummy, yummy, home cooked nasi lemak - all prepared by EC, chicken drumsticks with coconut rice, complete with roasted groundnuts, sambal, fried anchovies, hard boil egg and cucumbers.  For dessert, we had a little contrast... Lamingtons

This was wear we had our little picnic.  The eight of us, with great food and great fellowship.  We decided to sit under the shade in case the gulls overhead decide to "ka liu" (add ingredients) to our luncheon

V, W and J

We left Nobbies to head back to town, where we pick up our tickets for the seal cruise.  The sea was a rather choppy, and Vic and W was feeling nauseous but thank God there was no antiperistalsis.  William fell asleep holding on to our milk carton (from breakfast) and missed the whole seal experience.  I took plenty of video and photos to show him instead.

The beachside and jetty where we boarded our cruise ship

The three older kids hung out together out on the open upper deck

Whilst William preferred to be inside, because he was "afraid that we'd fall into the big vast ocean."  Here he's downing more milk that we brought along to finish so it wouldn't spoil in the car.  I was contemplating if I should stop him because the sea was rather choppy and he may just puke, especially after a full lunch too. 

Just a section of Seal Rock... there is easily thousands of 'em seals!

Picture perfect.  God is even more perfect and beautiful than His creation.

Mr Seal

More more seals basking in the afternoon sun!  I was pondering to hubby how nice it is to be a seal...

Swimming seals every where

Each child got a special surprise - to be captain of the ship for just a few minutes, and they get a certificate for that too!

When we docked, we went for tea in town which was just a short 5 minutes walk.   Kids had fish and chips from Chino's whilst adults nibbled on sweet lemon meringue and passion fruit cheese cake from the local bakery next door. 

Closer to 5pm, we decided to say bye bye to Phillip Island and head back to Melbourne.  We didn't go straight home, but stopped by Springvale to have the most talked about Vietnamese food.  

Pho comes in large bowls that can easily feed three kids or one hungry man!

Their contact number.