Landing in Australia
I first landed in Australia with one main focus: attending my friend’s wedding.
After that, I figured I’d work out the rest. Although, being the type-A person that I am, I’ve never been particularly good at just ‘figuring things out’. I always need to know what I’m doing next, whether that’s an activity, a job or simply where I’m going to sleep that night.
I landed two weeks before the wedding so that I had some time to acclimatise to the Australian weather and the time zone. I already had a hostel booked for my first two and a half weeks, which gave me somewhere to stay while I settled in and figured out what I wanted to do next.
But before I could even get on the plane, there was the small matter of packing up my life in the UK.
I had to sort through my belongings, decide what was coming with me, what I was leaving behind and what I simply couldn’t justify keeping. I packed up the parts of my old life that I wasn’t taking to Australia into boxes and moved them over to my Dad’s house. It was a strange feeling, putting parts of my life into storage while preparing to leave the country with no real return date.
Then came the packing for Australia.
I’ve always been an overpacker, and I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever grow out of. The fact that I knew I was going to be travelling around Australia for an unknown amount of time didn’t exactly help.
It was the last month of the Australian summer, so I knew I needed clothes for the heat. But having lived here before, I also knew that the weather would eventually turn and that Australian winters could get surprisingly cold. I didn’t want to be caught out.
I also knew that I wanted to experience the backpacker lifestyle properly, which meant I had to somehow fit my life into something vaguely resembling backpacker luggage.
In the end, I filled my Dad’s old backpack, a mini suitcase and another smaller backpack dedicated to my electronics.
So much for travelling light.
The Wedding
Then came the reason I had originally booked my flight to Australia: my friend’s wedding.
Not many people knew I was coming. In fact, I think I was more nervous about that than I was about the wedding itself. It had been years since I’d lived in Australia, and I couldn’t help wondering whether the people I had met during my year abroad would even remember me.
I had spent a whole year here in 2018, made friends, built a little life and then left. So much had happened since then, and I was coming back into their lives quite unexpectedly. There was a small part of me that worried I might arrive and realise that the connections I remembered so fondly had only existed because we were all living in the same place at the same time.
But then there was the practical problem of actually getting to the wedding.
I’d planned the trip around being there, but somehow I hadn’t thought much about how I was going to get myself to and from the venue. It was around three hours from the city, so getting an Uber back afterwards definitely wasn’t an option.
I realised I’d need somewhere to stay near the venue for the night, so I found an Airbnb within walking distance and booked it. Problem solved.
Or so I thought.
What I hadn’t considered was that I’d be surrounded by people who were also heading back towards the city after the wedding. Throughout the night, several people offered to drive me back.
Looking back, I probably should have thought ahead a little more. I’d paid for an Airbnb near the venue when I could have very easily accepted a lift back to the city with someone else.
But at the time, I was still figuring out how this trip was going to work. I had a one-way ticket, a hostel booked for the first few weeks and a wedding to attend. Everything after that was still a bit of a mystery.
One of the first things I did was book a group tour. I’d heard that joining group trips was a great way to meet new people and make friends, especially when travelling on your own, so I thought it was the perfect way to start exploring and hopefully meet people along the way.
I booked a day trip package that included two very different Australian experiences: a ride on the historic Puffing Billy steam train through the Dandenong Ranges, followed by the famous Penguin Parade on Phillip Island. It seemed like the perfect introduction to exploring Victoria, and I was excited to see both in the same day.
Puffing Billy
Our first stop was Puffing Billy, one of Victoria’s most iconic historic railways. The steam railway dates back to 1900 and was originally built to serve the communities and industries of the Dandenong Ranges. Today, the railway is kept running largely by volunteers, which I thought made the whole experience even more special.
Our tour bus picked us up in Melbourne in the morning and took us out to the railway, where our train journey began. It was a particularly hot day, and we were out in the midday sun as we boarded the train. After the train ride, the bus met us at the other end, and we continued onto Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade later that evening.
One of the things that makes Puffing Billy so fun is that you can sit with your legs hanging over the side of the carriage as the train winds its way through the Dandenong Ranges. As we set off, the conductor waved us off in his uniform, and with the steam train and the surrounding scenery, it almost felt like we had stepped back in time.
The scenery was beautiful, with the train winding through the lush forests and hills of the Dandenong Ranges. It made me realise that this was probably something I wouldn’t have experienced if I had simply stayed around Melbourne. The Dandenong Ranges are a few hours out of the city, so I could easily have missed them altogether if I hadn’t booked this particular trip.
It was also lovely seeing people going about their everyday lives as we passed through. We saw people out in their gardens and others sitting in their cars, and they would wave as the train went past. It felt like we were getting a little glimpse into these communities rather than simply passing through as tourists.
I made sure to attach a little dangly charm bracelet to my phone so I could take photos without worrying about accidentally dropping it over the side. One other piece of advice: don’t wear white! The steam engine does send a fair amount of soot into the air, and some of it will inevitably find its way onto you.
I ended up sitting next to another Brit, and we got on really well. It was nice to have someone to chat to during the journey, especially as I’d booked the trip partly because I was hoping to meet people.
One of the things I remember most was finding out a little more about the people who keep Puffing Billy running. Our train driver was actually a surgeon who volunteered to drive the train on his days off simply because he enjoyed it. I loved hearing that people give up their free time to help keep a piece of Australian history alive simply because they enjoy being part of it.
It wasn’t quite the typical group-tour experience I had imagined, where you meet a group of people and end up travelling or making plans together afterwards. But I really enjoyed the morning. I got to experience somewhere I probably wouldn’t have visited on my own, met some lovely people and had a great start to my first proper day of exploring Australia.
I’d also love to come back in winter one day. Puffing Billy runs special evening journeys with the train lit up against the dark, and I think experiencing it in the cooler weather and surrounded by lights would be completely different.
Link to the tour group
The Penguin Parade
After Puffing Billy, we had a long drive down to Phillip Island. The Penguin Parade was an evening experience, with our tour scheduled to arrive at the beach around 8 pm so we could find our seats and wait for the penguins to come ashore.
Before heading to the beach, we stopped in one of the towns on Phillip Island for a late lunch. Steph, the fellow Brit I had met on the train, and I decided to go for an Italian together, which gave us a chance to get to know each other a little more.
The restaurant was covered in motorbike memorabilia, which caught my attention straight away. My Dad is a huge motorbike racing fan, so I already knew about Phillip Island and its famous motorcycle races before I’d even arrived. Steph was also a motorbike fan, so it gave us something else to chat about over lunch.
It felt like a funny coincidence that we had only met that morning on the train and were already sitting down having lunch together. We’d gone from sitting next to each other on Puffing Billy to exploring Phillip Island together, finding little things we had in common along the way.
After our late lunch, we had some time to explore a little before heading to the beach. We stopped at a viewing area with a walkway built above some of the penguins’ hidden burrows. If you looked closely, you could spot little penguin chicks tucked away inside, waiting for the adults to return with food.
While we were waiting for the rest of the group at the walkway, Steph and I got chatting with our bus driver. He turned out to have quite a history, particularly when it came to snakes, and had plenty of stories to tell us. He even gave us some advice about what to do if we came across a snake, including his memorable tip to stay still if you spotted one.
After that, it was time to head down to the beach and wait for the main event.
When we arrived at the Penguin Parade, I had a look around the gift shop before making my way down the very long walkway towards the beach. I found a spot on the sand next to Steph, and then we settled in to wait.
There was a welcome presentation before the penguins arrived, followed by someone coming out to tell us more about the little penguins we were about to see. They were much smaller than I had imagined and were once commonly nicknamed ‘fairy penguins’, which I thought was a pretty fitting name for them.
We were asked not to take photos or film the penguins, so one of the jobs for the staff was to keep an eye on the crowd and catch anyone trying to sneak out their phone. They made a bit of a joke out of it, calling people out over the speakers and playfully embarrassing them in front of everyone. It definitely made people think twice before trying to get their phones out.
There was also a member of staff whose job was to count the penguins as they came ashore. I remember thinking that was such a strange but important job — standing there each evening, keeping track of how many little penguins had made their way home.
While we were waiting, we found it quite funny watching people suddenly point towards the surf whenever they spotted movement in the water. Everyone was hoping they had seen the first penguin, only for it to turn out to be a few seagulls bobbing around in the waves. After waiting for so long, I think we were all getting a little too eager to spot them!
Eventually, the penguins started appearing.
It was so cute watching these tiny little penguins come out of the surf and make their way up onto the sand and into the dunes. They would disappear into the dunes to find their families, and it was amazing watching them meet up and somehow know exactly where they needed to go.
After spending so long waiting and watching the surf, seeing these tiny penguins emerge from the water and make their way home was definitely worth the wait. There was something really special about watching them reunite with their families and seeing how naturally they seemed to know exactly where they belonged.
We had to be back at the bus by a certain time, so Steph and I eventually made our way back. Of course, we couldn’t resist stopping a few times along the way when we spotted penguins waddling past us. It was hard to walk away when there were still tiny penguins wandering around right in front of us!
Eventually, we made it back to the bus, and it was time to leave Phillip Island and head back towards Melbourne. It had been a long day, and by then most of the bus was pretty quiet. After everything we had seen and done, people were tired, and before long, most of us had fallen asleep on the journey back.