Our Family Trip, Melbourne Part 4

It's All About Family Fun~Phillip Island

7. Our 2 nights @ Phillips Island

We bought our passes in advance so we will be visiting Koala Conservation Centre, The Penguin Parade, Churchill Island Heritage Farm, Panny's Chocolate Factory and A Maze'N Things. Yes, all these were planned for my G. But we were quite excited too haha especially the Penguin Parade! It's our highlight of the trip! ... But ever since we reach Phillips Island it was raining heavily, almost nonstop. That spoiled some of our plans...

Koalas - Most famous animal ambassador of Australia

We were quite excited to see koalas at first and silly I thought we could carry the koala and take photos at the Koala Conservation Centre. Anyway, it was drizzling and we could only spot a few koalas. All of them were in their classic post - hug tree and snooze. They were all quite high up so we could only see gray furry balls.. Till we met this...

Koalas spend much of their time resting in order to conserve energy to compensate for their low energy diet.

Getting excited because we had been walking around and spot nothing much :(

A Maze'N Things - A Wacky Wacky Day

This is probably one of those places where your cool teenage son or daughter doesn't want to be associated with and anyone found touring in would be labelled Geek. But yet, we had a fun time inside Hahaha ... x___x"

This place is about illusion rooms, mazes, rotating rooms and a highest indoor vertical slide (not for the faint hearted me (*__*). One of the staff met us and wanted to perform a magic for G. He asked Daddy to step into a little mirror room and asked G to say the magical words to make Daddy disappear. G followed and Tada Abracadabra makes her dearest Daddy gone! G was almost in tears! And the staff quickly reverses the spell and G says the magical words again with lots of Love ... Abracadabra Daddy please come back... I love you! Tada! The childish Daddy is back again and my little G of course had her smile back ... hahaha ... Haiz... Will she tear if Mommy is gone? Anyway, here are some other things that we did...

Look @ Daddy!

What's Today's Special huh?

OMG...

Of course we wanted to be on the menu too! ; P

And our little G became a Giant G!

We tried the maze, it was quite fun!

Cutie G starts to show interest in this kind of things Haha~

Panny's Chocolate Factory - The Sweetest Visit

Sometimes I wish we could have a chocolate factory in SG (do we have? Sorry I didn't bother to check) so that we can visit as and when and munch delicious samples there. I have some high expectations on taste because it's direct from factory (I don't know why I had that logic ). Also because I enjoy the chocolates in my last US trip so much (it's already 2 years ago!) Hmmmm delicious Ghirardeli squares added in milk to make the delish chocolatey milk...  yumz...

Panny's chocolate didn't win me over. But I do enjoy the visit playing the chocolate games and collecting the chips for surprise gift!

We totally skipped Churchill Island Heritage Farm due to the non stop rain. We decided that because it would be too harsh for G to go under the rain for the whole day and get sick. Importantly we do not want to miss the penguin parade!

The World Famous Penguin Parade (in the Rain)

Yes, we were waiting for cute little birds to come home at sunset, in the rain. Poor G, was all drenched. Luckily, I had bought a raincoat for her at the Target Store that afternoon.

By the way, no photos allowed. This is because, the penguins eyes are too sensitive to light and sudden flash can frighten or disorientate them. To see the penguins coming home in colonies, was quite amazing! But I was hoping they can walk past our legs haha...

First time I allow G to stay in the rain for such long period!

Our accommodation in Phillip Island - Ramada Resort

This is one of the better stay we had for our trip, definitely worth to mention.

Our Ramada Resort is a 2 bedroom cottage style with full kitchen facilities, outdoor deck setting and full laundry facilities. Best of all, we can drive our car right up to the door step, so convenient! Everything is clean and well maintain, so comfortable just like at home. I can strongly recommend for family stay on Phillip Island. View here for more information http://www.ramadaphillipisland.com.au/accommodation/.

As restaurants closed as early as 4pm, we decided to head down to Coles to buy our food for dinner. Also because our dear G had been craving for white rice! This will definitely satisfy her :P

White Rice! Good idea!

Nothing good but very expensive

Cosy home

 

 

Likes: Accommodation, Penguin Parade,

Dislikes: The raining season



Bonus: Great shopping at Target store & Coles Supermarket!



Our Family Trip, Melbourne Part 3

Good Morning, Mornington Peninsula

6. Mornington Peninsula
I hardly remember much about this, I had to say. I always assure myself when I travel, if I couldn't remember much about the place, it wasn't worth to do so: P (some sort of excuses that I came up with when I went for work trip haha).

I remembered this restaurant when we were still on G.O.R heading for Queenscliff. My dear daughter was so car sick and we had to stop for a rest, getting lunch at the same time. We came to a small vibrant town Lorne and finally found a nice crowded restaurant selling Asian cuisine.

G was playing again with a short rest

After this meal, we decided we better not try Chinese food anymore... We didn't even complete half a bowl as it's really quite yucky. But G had some and she was quite satisfied, probably miss her Chinese food badly. There was this Ang Mo family beside us and they totally love the food (we ordered the same dishes)... leaving us puzzled...and we wish they could taste Singapore food someday.

We continued our 2.5hrs drive to Queenscliff - sea road ferries to cross the bay to the Mornington Peninsular. I was quite amazed by the fact that we are driving into the ferry (Miss Sua Ku) XD.

While waiting for the ferry, we went up to the observation tower to admire the great beautiful harbour view





The 40 minute ferry was great as a good rest for my driver hubby :) and I was impressed with the little playground provided for children. It was a good idea and I seriously think Batam and Bintan ferries should follow! If they had a better variety of food on-board, it will be perfect .

I really had no idea what to do at Mornington Peninsula, except that it helped to shorten our journey to Phillips Island the next day. Anyway, we drove about a little (hubby keyed in wrong hotel) and we couldn't find anything, just "wilderness " and after which we found our accommodation  for the night, Flinders Hotel. It looks cool, clean and modern. Australia really practice good work life balanced! Reception informed us that there won't be anybody at the front desk after 8pm - good life! Oh yeah, the hotel had an award winning fine dining restaurant - Terminus. We were so tempted to try but G was so attracted to the other casual dining - The Deck, which had a really nice playground (again).

 This is a more decent bed compared to the previous 2 we had which were pretty worn out

 Enjoying the play before her dinner

 G requested for her own camera and proved to us her camera skills.

 Confirm Duck Leg, Lentis & Cous Cous

Boring hubby ordered just some random boring steak

We really had nothing to do as the surrounding was all quiet. We even went to a nearby park and spotted some cute squirrels, then head back for an early night. 

We were glad that buffet breakfast is included. But all we find appetizing are peanut butter bread. Asians are too pampered indeed!

We had some time before we had to move on to Phillip Island. I wanted to see those colorful beach boxes and we promised G to do strawberry plucking.

Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm

 Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm 

 Daddy is looking excited too!

 Checking out mummy's harvest

 G felt great accomplishment!

 We had desserts before we said goodbye...

Mount Martha Beach Boxes
I am quite embarrassed to say that I was looking forward to take photos of the beach boxes. I am always attracted by colors and those postcard shots scenery: p some people just can't understand why people like me will go all out just to see something like this ... Hope you love these photos, some of my favourites here...



Colourful Mount Martha Beach Boxes



My tired little koala G 

We choose our favourite box



Of course she choose a pink one



Daddy's Fav



I love this Max! This place can also be a great venue to take wedding photos!



 

Likes:

- I would have to say Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm is a great experience for G as I had promised her to a strawberry farm.

- Mount Martha Beach Box was averagely good

Dislikes: Hotel location. We could have stayed in Main Street where its more lively :(

Bonus: =_=