We headed to Phillip Island for two nights. Mainly to see the little fairy penguins waddle up the beach at sunset and also to visit the Vietnam Veterans museum and a chocolate factory. Fi and I had some wonderful memories of watching the penguins almost 35 years ago as kids about the boys age so we were really looking forward to seeing if things had changed…..Oh, had they ever!!! We both remember our experience as driving down to the beach with your flashlight and your parka on then wandering through the dunes with about 10 other people, our parents constantly telling us to shushhh. Then, watching hundreds of the little creatures waddle up the beach into the dunes around us.

With the excitement growing we headed off, but noticing the ginormous brown tourist signs at each turn to the beach was a give away that it had changed…..a lot. We got there with about 30 minutes before the penguins arrived and parked the car in a car park larger than that at any of the three attractions we went to on the Gold Coast. Walking the 200 metres past about 100 buses to the "Penguin Centre" we made our way through the very new and expensive double doors to an astonishing site. This place looked like a futuristic cinema with literally thousands of people milling about getting their pictures taken against green screens in one corner and 3 separate gift stores, each the size of a small shopping mall in the others. I was told there were 3,000 people there that night and it wasn't considered busy. In the peak season they have 4,000 and turn away 2,000 cars a night!!!!…..amazing. Fi and I paid a small fortune, walked past the popcorn stand, yes there was a popcorn stand, and filed on down the outside boardwalks to the viewing platform that seated us all. The view was amazing, not of the beach or the penguins, but the tourists and the set up… I pulled out my camera and was about to take some photos of the crowd but was stopped by the rangers. I protested that I only wanted to take a picture of all the people but they were serious so we pocketed our phones and sat and waited. When the penguins arrived it was very special and the boys loved it. They were having fun, not only watching the penguins, but watching the Rangers tell one Chinese tourist after another that they shouldn't run to the front and block the view so they had to sit on their "bottoms". Lots of bum tapping by the Rangers and shouts of "Sit the f*&k down!!" from those less tolerant at the back of the crowd made the experience that little bit more edgy, and in our opinion, better. After the first 20 penguins came up the beach 90% of the tourists got up and left and rushed back onto their buses before buying some tat from one of the three massive gift shops. This we found really funny as they could have bought it for wholesale price from around the corner where most of them lived before they got on the planes over here and buying it from some dodgy tourist shop.

We ended up staying for the whole time and watched most of the penguins arrive and then followed them along the boardwalks as they made their way to their burrows. Overall, a different experience to the one Fi and I remember but still magical to see and the gold mine the greenies were making on this nightly event was being put to good use and ensuring others can see this well into the future…..with popcorn and a fluffy toy for later if they wish…. We spent the next day at the Vietnam Veterans museum which was excellent and a chocolate factory that was a bit similar to the penguin experience but without the crowds. The day was finished off with a lovely meal at Leon Sweeney's beach house (From Traralgon…) where I bet the boys $1,000 if they could catch one of the rabbits that were running around outside. Some plans were hatched but they returned empty handed and becoming suspicious that we only did it to get them out of the house we headed home to a gale force storm and our thermals for not the first time that week…..

Ballarat was the next stop and whilst the weather looked nice it was cold and the nights were dropping to below 5c, which had us in our thermals again. We spent two days at Sovereign Hill, a working replica town based around the gold rush of Ballarat in the mid 19th century. It was done very well with actors and actresses wandering around pretending they were part of the rough mining town in the 1860's. A couple of tours of a mine, some blacksmithing displays and a gold pouring exhibit of a real ingot of gold worth $150,000 were the highlights. However, the boys were completely enamoured by panning for real gold in the creek that runs through the town. Crouching down beside the creek they were shaking and swishing their pans for ages. To their credit the boys did find some gold and proudly put them in a little glass vial which they promised us was worth about a million dollars…..we wish…. The authenticity was so remarkable that they even shipped in bus loads of Chinese to meander down the streets being looked at strangely by the locals just like it was in the olden days…and … …oh…they were just tourists….tonnes of them. We thought it quite surreal again that the gift stores were getting a hammering.