November 1, 2014 - Royal Botanic Gardens, Philip Island for Little Penguins

Daily itinerary were:

• Flew and arrived Melbourne at 1:40PM
• 10 minutes tour in Royal Botanic Gardens
• Drove to Philip Island
• Chinese Dinner in Philip Island
• Watched little penguins returning from sea
• Drove back to Melbourne 
• Checked into Novotel Glen Waverley hotel 

We took the 9:20AM flight from Cairns to Melbourne and arrived Melbourne around 1:40PM.  Our regular tour guide Alicia did not show up instead we met a young travel office staff at the airport.  He took us directly to Royal Botanic Gardens to meet Alicia.  Later we found out Alicia was working with police and immigration officer on a defected case regarding one member of her previous tour group from mainland China.  Once we got to Royal Botanic Gardens, Alicia only gave us 10 minutes to see one spot of the 3,600 arecs internationally renowned botanical gardens.  It has been considered as Melbourne's inner-city oasis with more than 10,000 plant species from around the world.  It has sweeping lawns, tranquil lakes and majestic trees with an amazing range of wildlife. She told us that sometime we may be able to spot black swans in the nearby lake. However, only 2 couples in our group walked faster enough into the garden and were able to spot a black swan family (parent and 3 babies).  

Then we were on a 2 1/2 hours bus ride to Philip Island to have dinner and then watch the little penguins.  The dinner was in a Chinese Restaurant with lobster.  Even with lobster for everyone, 6 dishes and soup for all was not enough for a 9 persons table. The lobster dinner was disappointing in comparing with the lobster we can get in Houston's restaurants.  

The communication of today's schedule was pretty bad.  We all knew that we need heavier jackets for tonight's penguins viewing, however they never told us that we would have to drive to Philip Island without stopping at hotel first.  We had to asked the bus driver to stop to fetch our heavier jackets by the roadside in a windy and raining weather.  In addition, the bus driver in Melbourne had a very bad attitude.  It made the 1st day in Melbourne a very bad one.

Prior to enter the Penguin Parade platform area to watch the little penguins returning from sea, additional delays were caused by one missing ticket (at fault of the local tour company) and trying to wait for some members who was already gone to the platform area.  In addition, Alicia gave us the wrong information regarding where we should sit to get a better view of the little penguins.  It did not help the situation with the rain and wind either.  We waited and waited, finally spotted few penguins coming in before other tourists stood up and blocked our view.  On the way back to the main building we did spot some little penguins which were very cute. In my opinion, the whole experience could be better arranged if we had a better tour guide with better instructions.