Day 55 of "Figuring it Out" - Phillip Island Must Do's

Good afternoon blog friends! Happy Wednesday!

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I hope the weather is being absolutely wonderful to you today, wherever you are in the world. Melbourne weather today has been SOOOO hot (it's about 30 degrees where I live and Luke's just informed me that the temperature dropped 10 degrees in about 15 minutes in the middle of the city because a storm is brewin'). So, more thunder and lightning storms are definitely coming this afternoon. As I look outside my office window, it's getting super dark and overcast but as I said before, my phone is still telling me it's 30 degrees. Defo felt very humid when I went outside earlier today. I also got very very sunburnt yesterday and my arms are stinging so much. Yes, I wore 50+ sunscreen but it likely sweated off me and I didn't have any in my bag while we were at the wildlife park. Hopefully, my arms don't peel too much over the next few days. My aloe vera gel to the rescue. LOL. Isn't it weird what goes on through my head? I hope ya'll enjoy the stream of consciousness writing that just seems to turn into word vomit half the time, but hey, it's giving me purpose and identity and also allowing me to explore my creative side - which isn't something I've put heaps of passion or energy into before. Pls don't come for me if my grammar isn't amazing either.

Today, I wanted to thank everyone for reading my blog, whether you read every post or a few or just open them on your phone or computer as a new tab to look at for awhile, I really really appreciate it. We don't have much traffic atm but I'm so grateful that it's around 10 people reading my daily rambles most days! I'd love to build that up but I know daily posts are a lot to keep up with. For now, it's what I want to keep doing, especially to practice my writing.

Anyway, today seems like a good health day. I don't know if that's because I had time to relax and do my own thing or if the iron and B12 are finally starting to work. I don't know, but I hope it keeps improving. I did wake up feeling quite nauseous and dizzy but I managed to get up early-ish and have some avo on toast for brekkie to help me start the day. I also woke up feeling a bit sad but I think getting out in the sun helped improve my mood. I've also been spending the day working on more creative things and that always seems to give me joy. Today, I made a cute video of a koala mum and joey from the Koala Conservation Reserve in Phillip Island. I'll post the YT below. I don't think it's amazing as I've got no idea how to remove the background sound of people, but it's pre cute and giving me a new look on life so to speak because I'd never ever seen a Koala Joey before Monday and now I have!

Hope you enjoyed the little one as much as I did. I absolutely love animals, they make me so happy. I was also randomly talking to them at the other wildlife park yesterday. I don't know why, but it seems more personable to the animals because we were going into their home. I think it's so important to respect animals whether they're in conservation OR out in the wild. I remember my mum always saying she saw me working with animals - but I didn't have the guts to be a vet and now you need a whole biology/ecology degree to do anything with conservation. And I've already studied so much. But, maybe one day! Working with animals in a wildlife conservation park is definitely a dream career - like I'm so jealous of what the Irwin's get to do with their lives. Animals, photography, and promoting conservation. So cool.

Anyway, today I've been for one walk and it sure was humid but I did a longer loop by myself than I have been doing (and in the heat too so that was good) although I was sad because Optus' network is currently down, I couldn't play Pokemon Go on my walk. I also received a few birthday cards in the mail (for tomorrow - thank you everyone), and Luke ordered a special early birthday surprise for me - which he totally stole off of me as I did a similar thing for his birthday earlier this year heheh. But anyway, it was a lovely bunch of sunflowers, some brut, a cute llama plush, and some fancy chocolates. Very special.

So pretty!

For today's blog post, I thought I'd share some of my must do's when visiting Phillip Island, Victoria as I've been there twice now and enjoyed what the island had on offer. So I'll share my thoughts and then post some more pics from my phone from my most recent trip there with Luke this week! My other trip was in February this year where I took mum for some adventures around Victoria.

Phillip Island Must Do's

• Koala Conservation Reserve - a wonderful conservation park to see koalas, wallabies, and birdlife up close. $15pp (adult) and it's about 1 hour to walk around the whole park (but I'd allow more for taking photos). It's also a great place to teach younglings about conservation and wildlife.

• Phillip Island Wildlife Park - if you want to feed animals, this is the best place to go. You can feed the kangaroos, wallabies, and emus here. The park is open from 11am to 5pm Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays. It costs $21pp (adult) to get in and it includes a bag of feed. I want to say allow a whole day here as the park is much bigger than it seems. Luke and I spent about 2.5 hours there yesterday.

• Churchill Island - we didn't get a chance to go here as it was nearly closed by the time we were leaving and didn't want to risk it, but I've seen this place advertised everywhere online so it must be good. It's open daily 10am to 4:30pm and has a range of activities including walking trails and farm stuff (like milking cows and whatnot). We drove into it a little bit and saw some pelicans chilling in the water.

• San Remo Pelican Feeding (12pm Daily) - if you're driving into Phillip Island or driving out of it, a must-stop place is definitely the pelican feeding area in San Remo. The pelicans get fed every day at 12pm and it's so cool to watch them up close. When I took mum here, we saw a few and got some cool photos. Unfortunately, Luke and I didn't see the pelicans on Monday this week but we did see a stingray right up on the shoreline which was pretty magical. There's also some cute cafes and quirky shops to look in as well.

• Grenache Wine Bar - Luke and I were looking for dinner somewhere on Monday night and everywhere in Cowes was looking pretty packed, we were worried we weren't going to find any where and we hadn't made a booking in advance because we didn't really know what we wanted. And, we did not expect it to be that busy. But alas, stumbled across the cutest wine bar and decided to try our luck there. It was just before 6pm and it wasn't looking too packed but we got a table and the food was great and the staff were absolutely lovely and pretty funny too! I doubt they will ever read this blog but thank you!

• Amaze'N'Things - this is somewhere I went with mum and it was like a sensory mazy of sorts (or more illusionary - that might be a better word). Mum and I went through Magic Manor, Puzzle Island, and the Maze. It costs $42pp (adult) and they suggest allowing at least 1.5 hours but I would say more like 2-3 because of how cool some of the magic stuff is. You just have to take photos in there. It's definitely one of the more pricier attractions but very cool nonetheless.

• Penguin Parade - I did this when mum came over to visit Melbourne earlier in the year and I was so sad we weren't allowed to take photos of the penguins. It really sucked! But dumb people not turning their flash off are the ones who have ruined it for everyone - and f*ck the people who still took photos on their phone when they weren't allowed to. Like c'mon, respect the penguins. Anyway, being from NZ, I've been fortunate enough to see a lot of penguins in the wild before. But these were super cute to watch waddle in from the shore. So cute. The little blue penguins (or fairy penguins) are the only penguins found in Australia. General admission tickets costs $30pp (adult) but mum and I opted in for the Penguin Plus tickets which cost $75pp (adult) meaning we were closer to the penguins than others.

• Nobbies - have you ever seen a seagull chick before? Well make sure you put in time to check out the Nobbies. It's a really short boardwalk overlooking the Southern Coastline and there's some cool rock formations. I think even sometimes seals show up on the rocks (but I'm not 100% sure). Luke and I went there twice on our most recent trip. One was on Monday night to watch the sunset and we saw some of the lightning there before the Ranger told us it was closing time and the second time, we stopped in before we drove back to Melbourne (there were a lot of tourists there then) but it was worth it because we saw Cape Barren Geese, Seagulls + their chicks and heaps of terns.

• Explore the beaches in general - there's so many to choose from! There's Cowes Beach, Smiths Beach, Cape Woolamai, Forest Caves, Ventnor Beach and so many more. Check out all the cool beach advice "here."

There's definitely way more things to do on Phillip Island and it's a great weekend getaway from Melbourne or city life in general. I absolutely want to go back there in winter and do some astro-photography and star-gazing (and more photography in general). But anyway, here's some snaps from my phone from my trip with Luke to Phillip Island for an early birthday present.

Anyway! That's it from me today. The thunder and lightning have started and Luke and I need to go and to some groceries tonight for the next few days. Hope you enjoyed my travel recommendations and let me know if you've been anywhere I have!

For today's question, I want to know, what is your favourite app you're using at the moment? Let me know in the comments below. For me, I'm using "Gratitude" which is like a self-care journal to prompt you every day to write about what you're grateful for. There's a free version and a paid version and I'm just using the free version but so far this year, I've written 240 entries. They're not always very long because it's hard to type on your phone, but it's definitely helping me mentally and make me feel more grateful.

Anyway, I'm out, the internet is starting to get slow again with the bad weather and my thoughts aren't coming out as fast as I type them.

I'll see you all tomorrow! For another year older, gross.

Much love,

Ash xx