{"id":23602,"date":"2011-03-17T04:02:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T08:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/23602\/great-australia-road-trip-page-5\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T16:44:52","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T16:44:52","slug":"great-australia-road-trip-page-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/23602\/great-australia-road-trip-page-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Australia Road Trip \u2013 Page Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 6 – Tuesday – September 21, 2010<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Weather:\u00a0 Rainy & Cold<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Destination:\u00a0 Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Odometer Reading:\u00a0 96832<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Total Distance Traveled:\u00a0 1489 kilometers (925 miles)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Price of Fuel:\u00a0 Foster – $1.30.9 liter, 58.60 liters, $76.71<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Route Taken:\u00a0 Foster to Wilson Promontory to Leongatha to Inverloch to Wonthaggi to Newhaven to Cowes on Phillip Island<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Highlights:\u00a0 We\u2019re up early again and it\u2019s gray, rainy and cold today.\u00a0 There were some huge snails crawling around on the planter boxes and I tried to get a picture of them, but again the camera is giving me problems.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it likes the cold and wet too much.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Since we’re so close to Phillip Island and the penguins don’t come in until sunset we decided to take the drive down to Wilson Promontory National Park.\u00a0 This detour from our original plan was so worth it.\u00a0 By the time we got to the entrance of The Prom, as it is called, the sun was shining every so often, and the weather had turned really nice.\u00a0 We were first greeted by a large flock of emus crossing the road.\u00a0 As they crossed, we tried counting how many there were and the best number we could come up with between the two of us was 32.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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We drove to the Visitors Center at Tidal River to pay the $25.00 per person entry fee and to see what we could get to in the motorhome.\u00a0 There are cabins and camping spots at Tidal River, but The Prom overall is a pretty wild (in the literal sense) place with lots of hiking trails.\u00a0 I was able to snap a few pictures of the birds that were hanging around the Visitors Center.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Prom is surrounded on three sides by water and the views that we were able to see were spectacular.\u00a0 We decided to try the hike to the Mt. Oberon Summit and drove the motorhome up the winding road to the Telegraph Saddle Carpark.\u00a0 The road was so narrow in some spots, that it was a good thing we didn\u2019t run into anybody on their way down.\u00a0 We made it up to the carpark without any problem, but there were so many people already parked up there that we couldn\u2019t find a spot to wedge ourselves into.\u00a0 After making a 42-point turn to get turned around and head back down, we are now affectionately referring to the motorhome as \u201cThe Beast\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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We drove over to the Squeaky Beach parking area and took the stroll down to the beach.\u00a0 Squeaky Beach has its name because when you walk on the sand it squeaks.\u00a0 \u00a0The sound was similar to a really quiet squeaky toy.\u00a0 The park ranger at the Visitor Center told us that the beach squeaks because all the grains of sand are the same size and it’s like walking on tiny round marbles.\u00a0 As we were walking along the beach we wondered, first, who would take the time to measure the grains of sand and, then, exactly how did they do that?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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On the way back out of The Prom we stopped at a few more lookouts and took a few more pictures.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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We made it to Phillip Island in the mid-afternoon and found our spot for the night in Cowes.\u00a0 The Man couldn\u2019t wait to get over to the Penguin Parade.\u00a0 For all his anticipation, we really shouldn’t have bothered.\u00a0 It was $20.00 per person to get in and you couldn’t take pictures or video of any kind.\u00a0 You end up sitting on metal bleachers way above the beach and it was freaking cold after the sun went down.\u00a0 From the bleachers, unless you have binoculars, you really can’t see the penguins coming out of the water in the dark since they are so small and they straggle out of the ocean in tight little groups.\u00a0 So, rather than freeze our butts off on the bleachers, since we did bring the high powered binoculars, we decided to stand behind the empty top row of bleacher seats and watch them come in.\u00a0 We got lucky because we were standing on the walkway right in front of a nest with two chicks.\u00a0 As it got closer to the time that the adults would come back to shore, the chicks would waddle out from time to time and call for them.\u00a0 When the adult made it back, we got to see the reunion for a bit before we were swarmed with all the other people that were there.\u00a0 The penguins were cute, it was somewhat interesting and now we can say we did it, but all in all we could have skipped the Penguin Parade.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Stops:\u00a0 We stopped everywhere we could while traveling through Wilson Promontory National Park, but The Beast made us very aware of our limitations.\u00a0 We also made a stop in Inverloch for lunch and a quick stop at the Visitors Center before driving to Phillip Island.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Where We Stayed:\u00a0 We stayed at the Anchor Belle Holiday Park in Cowes on Phillip Island.\u00a0 The rate was $34.20 a night with our discount and it wasn\u2019t too far from the Penguin Parade.\u00a0 This was an older park with narrow one way drives, big trees and small spaces.\u00a0 It was pretty full and getting The Beast in and out of there was an adventure in itself.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Where We Ate:\u00a0 We had lunch at Inlet Fish & Chips in Inverloch.\u00a0 We shared our orders of barramundi and whiting with nice big steak fries.\u00a0 Yummy.\u00a0 We had so much to eat for lunch, that we skipped dinner altogether.\u00a0 The penguins were calling after all.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 6 – Tuesday – September 21, 2010 Weather:\u00a0 Rainy & Cold Destination:\u00a0 Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia Odometer Reading:\u00a0 96832 Total Distance Traveled:\u00a0 1489 kilometers (925 miles) Price of Fuel:\u00a0 Foster – $1.30.9 liter, 58.60 liters, $76.71 Route Taken:\u00a0 Foster to Wilson Promontory to Leongatha to Inverloch to Wonthaggi to Newhaven to Cowes on Phillip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,25],"tags":[651,2432,2599,2600,2601,2431,2603,2602],"class_list":["post-23602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-other","category-world","tag-australia","tag-motorhome","tag-parks","tag-penguins","tag-phillip-island","tag-road-trip","tag-scenic-views","tag-wilson-promontory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116515,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23602\/revisions\/116515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}