Peter and I took our first vacation since moving to Australia this last weekend and got to check quite a few things off our bucket list! It was great to get out of the city for a couple of days and explore a new place. Peter took Monday off of work and Tuesday was the Melbourne Cup holiday, so we had a few days to head out of town. Our destination was Phillip Island, located about an hour and a half southeast of Melbourne. We booked our first ever Airbnb for the trip, which we were a little nervous about, but turned out just fine. We arrived on the island at about 11 am and couldn't check in until 3 pm, so we headed to Cowes (hilariously pronounced cows), the largest of the small cities on the island. Phillip island isn't very big, it took us about 15 minutes to get from one side to the other. 

I checked Urbanspoon, which rarely lets me down, and we ate brunch at MadCowes. Aside from having a great name, the restaurant also had delicious food. Peter ordered eggs, bacon and hashbrowns, and I had the best pancakes in the entire world, complete with cinnamon butter. 

It was cool and raining when we arrived, which was kind of a bummer, but we sat by the beach anyway. 

The clouds started to break up and we actually got a bit of sunshine for a few minutes. I know I say this a lot, but the strength of the sun here never ceases to amaze me; even at 65 degrees we were HOT when the sun was out. But alas it started raining again, so we drove to the Purple Hen Winery (mainly because I had read Miley Cyrus and then-fiancé Liam Hemsworth visited this place when they were on Phillip Island). It was a cute little winery, except for the sign warning of snakes in the area: 

Peter and I did some wine tasting and hung out for a bit. The legal alcohol limit is .05 here, so you have to pay a bit more attention to exactly how much wine you're tasting. 

We finally checked into our accommodation and then drove to the southwest corner of the island to a rock formation called The Nobbies. The view was beautiful and as usual, I probably took too many pictures. 

The barely-visible islands on the left side of the photo are the "seal rocks". Apparently thousands of seals live there and you can take a boat out to see them but it was really cold and pretty expensive so we decided to save that activity for another trip. 

We spotted what must have been a surfing class on a beach near The Nobbies. The waves looked pretty calm and we both decided this was the best place to take our first surfing lesson. Torquay was really cool, but the waves were much larger and stronger than at this beach, at least on the day we visited.

Peter is dying to learn to surf, so hopefully we can accomplish that in the next few weeks as the weather gets warmer.

I tend to stalk surfers. 

So after four months in Australia, we finally saw a wild kangaroo! Technically, I think it was a wallaby, but who's counting. The picture is a little grainy because I had to zoom in but it was pretty exciting! Apparently kangaroos are most active around sunset; we ended up seeing about 8 between the two nights we were on the island. I will never get over the way they hop around-they are the coolest animal ever! 

We ate dinner at White Salt Fish and Chips and then headed back to the beach to catch the sunset. 

Sunset at the Nobbies 

Another wallaby/kangaroo 

I have a lot more to report from our trip to Phillip Island, so I'll do a day two post tomorrow, complete with more pictures of kangaroos than you ever wanted to see. 

Today. Was. Awesome. Sylvie, Katie and I rented a car (Katie is a left-side pro at this point) and drove down to the Mornington Peninsula. The city of Mornington, where we started our journey, is about an hour or so from Melbourne and filled with cute shops and cafes like this one:

It was a chilly, rainy day for the most part, with intermittent moments of sunshine. 

The epic-ness of the adventure started at a really pretty glass blowing shop. These birds graced the extensive gardens outside the shop:

I probably should have considered the fact that gardens=bugs, because we walked in and I immediately spotted a medium-sized spider in the corner. I have a sixth sense for spotting spiders, and an almost phobia-level fear of them. It creeped me out a bit, but it wasn't alarmingly larger than something I'd find in the house in Minnesota.  

We turned the corner into the next room, and this monstrosity was just chillin on the ceiling. 

At first we thought it had to be fake. None of us had yet seen the famed Huntsman spider, which is said to grow to the size of a dinner plate. They are allegedly harmless, but I mean look at that thing...it could eat me if it wanted to. It's hard to get an accurate idea of the size from the picture, but it was about as big as my fist. Aka wayyyyy too big. Needless to say, I flipped out. There was another couple in the store that weren't phased in the least and probably super annoyed by my dramatics...they even walked right under the thing! The lady working the shop laughed and told us it was "on the small side" and she must have missed it this morning when she took out the rest. MISSED IT??? THE REST?? Yes, this woman takes a broom handle and transplants those freakishly large creatures into the garden every morning. That's right. She voluntarily gets within 3 feet of these things for a purpose other than squishing it into a million pieces. And for that, I sincerely hope she gets paid a million dollars a year. Also, a hand blown glass shop is decidedly the worst place in the world I could have come into contact with my first Huntsman: I almost knocked over a $700 bowl in my panic. In conclusion, it was top 5 most terrifying moments of my life. 

We continued onto a winery, which featured beautiful architecture and landscape. 

I needed a glass of wine after that Huntsman.

We saw some of the best road signs ever today:

To my disappointment, we didn't actually see any kangaroos or koalas, alive at least. We did see two dead kangaroos on the side of the road. I spared you the gruesome photos. 

Next we ventured to a goat cheese shop, complete with over 100 of its own goats. By the way, one of my dreams in life is to own a goat. Or 100s. 

We ordered two tasting trays, which were fabulous. 

My new goat friend! I think this one was named Pam, which is an epic name for a goat if you ask me.  

Goat selfie! 

No day trip would be complete without a trip to a chocolate shop! This one was in the city of Flinders, and had a really pretty selection. Sylvie is from Belgium and is therefore a chocolate snob, but even she thought these were awesome.

And of course good chocolate is expensive. This little guy was $2.50! 

We continued down the Peninsula to Cape Schanck, which I still couldn't tell you how to pronounce. We walked the trails down to the water and the views were beautiful. 

The lighthouse, which we didn't quite make it to, for reasons I will detail below. 

For comparison, this is essentially the same photo taken with Sylvie's camera. She has a really fancy one that takes amazing photos so she let me use a few of them here :). 

We decided to follow the stairs, which start here and go all the way down to the rock at the far left. It was windy, but we just threw our hoods up and started down the stairs. This is where is gets epic. 

After turning the first corner, we hit wind so strong we literally could not move forward against it. This is Sylvie attempting to make her way down the first turn. 

Great picture from Sylvie's camera. Katie and I turned against the wind so we could breathe. I'm not being dramatic here, I swear. I've never been in a hurricane but I imagine this is what it's like. 

We got around a corner and found some refuge. 

Sylvie's camera again. It captures the colors so well! 

We finally got down to the end, and hung out at this protected beach for a few minutes. 

Another photo from Sylvie's camera

Katie climbing the rocks

At this point, the third or forth rain shower of the day was about to pass over, so we headed back up. Either the wind got stronger (although I doubt that's even possible) or our change of direction made the trek back worse, but I kid you not, we feared for our lives for a minute or so. I don't have any pictures of this leg of the journey due to the fact that if I had taken out my phone, it would have undoubtedly blown away. We were pushed backward by the wind multiple times, and ended up walking hunched as close to the ground as possible to minimize the resistance. We were suspended over rocks and steep cliffs leading to really rough water, and seriously questioned whether the little wooden bridge we were on was going to hold up. We eventually made it to the top, but felt like we had run a marathon/climbed Mt. Everest. We collapsed onto the top staircase to catch our breathe, where I finally took out my phone to get some video: 

This is our "after" picture. 

I'm the first to admit I can be dramatic, but this was an unreal experience. None of us could recall being in wind that strong ever before. We saw a family with two small children start down the stairs and practically begged them to turn back.

After we recovered from that experience, we headed to a lookout point that provided amazing views of the city. 

Before heading home we stopped for a burger at The Royal Hotel in Mornington. 

All in all it was a great and memorable trip. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have continued on the Cape Schneck walk in such high winds, but YOLO.