Edited to add: I’ve made a video with additional details.
A recent weekend holiday down at Phillip Island was just what we needed. Here’s some photos and some extra information for people who haven’t been before. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it was our first trip there.
1. A Maze’N Things
Friends advised us that A Maze’N Things was the first place we had to go when we arrived. I can see why.
From their website:
A Maze’N Things is a unique, award winning theme park located on Phillip Island. It is a magical world of illusions, puzzles, mazes and mini golf that provides hours of fun for the whole family.
You can be shrunk in our shrinking room, become lost in one of our mazes or fall down the “Look Out” slide. All our attractions are stimulating, and require you to get involved in some way. Whatever you decide to do, we know that you’ll be laughing all the way.
There are a variety of packages on offer depending if you want to also go into the maze and play a round of golf – all of which we did. (I won golf – my putting skills rival Tiger’s.) We spent a good chunk of the day there – a testament to the amount of activities on offer. I was a little surprised at the family ticket price, but we got good value out of it. Also, because the weather wasn’t great, it was nice to be indoors out of the cold.
One of the highlights is this giant slide 6.4 metres off the ground. Keira surprised me and declared she wanted to try it, even though it is rather a formidable prospect. One trip up and she got the nerves and we were about to head back down again when she shook her head and said, no, I’m going to go.
And she did.
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I was very proud! Riley cried because he wasn’t allowed to go up there – he didn’t make the height requirement – and was quite jealous of her achievement. But don’t worry, I clapped enough for everyone (I was up the top, out of shot, holding her in place, so I missed a lot of this and am glad Adam shot the video.)
2. Phillip Island Chocolate Factory
You have to pay to enter the exhibition ‘experience’ called Pannys Amazing World of Chocolate (for some reason the lack of the apostrophe really bothered me. I kept asking myself, Am I right or wrong? Does it need one? I looks like it needs one. Technically it should… etc.) and some people who went there didn’t bother with paying extra. We did and made the most of it as they do hand out free samples and you can have a go at writing or designing your own chocolate shapes at the above station. As we went on a quiet day, we made… ah… quite a few. Especially Adam – he was in heaven. The chocolate tasted okay – certainly nothing too earth-shattering, but it was a bit of fun. There was an educational factor involved at the start which goes through the chocolate making process which I found interesting.
3. Churchill Island
Don’t let those blue skies fool you – it was cold. Brr! Windy. Churchill Island has a historic homestead, working heritage farm, gardens and walks. You have to pay to go into the homestead and farm part, but if you’re like us you can go get a coffee at the cafe and walk through the lavender gardens and around a few of the paths for free. It was a lovely spot.
4. Cowes Jetty
I won’t say how long we scouted around for a coffee on the Saturday morning, but it took us a drive all the way across the island until we discovered Cowes – the largest inhabited spot with most of the shopping. While we were there we walked out along the jetty and watched fisherman and the cruise boats come in. Riley begged us to take him down to the beach, but it was freezing so we said no. He did not like that one bit. On a warm day it would be lovely.
5. Penguin Parade
Picture taken from here
The one thing Phillip Island is perhaps known best for is the Penguin Parade: every night at sunset the local penguin population emerge from the sea to return home to their burrows. Unfortunately for us, me missed it this time around.
There’s a few things I didn’t know which might have influenced our decision. Keira has always gone to bed early of a nighttime, whereas Riley would stay up to midnight if we let him. If you can see on the table above, the average arrival time for the penguins is 8.15pm for November. Except when we were there, they weren’t coming in until almost 9pm. We had to make a decision: would we keep the kids awake to see them? In the end we didn’t – Keira was in bed long before they were even due. That might be something for other families to consider if you fall into a situation similar to ours.
