Yesterday was both my penultimate day in Australia and the day I finally worked out that what I thought was shampoo was in fact body wash, explaining why my hair had recently adopted the texture of a particularly wiry Patterdale terrier.

My aunty left the morning before and having sniffled my way around the apartment, returning to old faithful Bondi Beach Rescue to subdue the sorrow at our parting and the realisation that I was now properly going it alone, I booked a day trip to Phillip Island to see the world’s smallest penguins return from the sea. I hoped it would stop me moping about and as it also involved a trip to a koala conservation park and Churchill Island Farm, figured it would keep me busy for a full day.

I hopped on the tour coach the next day, which was already close to full. Notable members included a selection of Americans- two friendly girls and some sour looking pensioners in straw hats and polo shirts, along with several Chinese families, many of them dressed as if they were meeting the Queen and not small fish-eating birds, and a French family eating Mcdonalds. Their son immediately gained Shoesan points by angling his food so that my hand grazed his pot of ketchup as I walked down the aisle trying to find my seat. Sorry was not enough Francois* you condiment-wielding horror.

We set off, welcomed by our driver Steve**, an Aussie through and through with an enigmatic smile and a slightly corny but warm sense of humour which he used to jazz up the potted history of Australia that he relayed to us over the microphone. His charm made up for his somewhat niche taste in music- which included a song that details all the poisonous creatures in Australia and the classic club night floor filler ‘Please Don’t Call Me A Ko-ah-La Bear’ ( Youtube it- you won’t get it out of your head for weeks), which almost required claps on the beats and made it feel like a slightly surreal school trip.

Our first stop was Churchill Island Farm which I’m pretty sure has only stayed open due to its historic status as the site of the first agricultural ventures made by Europeans in Australia and large coach parties such as ours. It boasted a selection of sad looking animals- including a cheesed-off shire horse, some chickens, guinea pigs and a sombre goat prone to making very intense eye contact sat on an old wooden gymnastics vault. In hindsight he was probably blinking a morse code plea for a rescue attempt à la Jeremiah Denton, a hostage in the Vietnam War.

That being said- it did have beautiful sea views and it was interesting to poke around the old house- a Victorian home complete with elaborate wallpaper, plastic reconstructions of food and a slightly satanic looking plastic baby in the lace-covered nursery.

We drove on to the koala conservation area, a fenced off area of bush where koalas could do whatever koalas do while being snapped my hoards of tourists. Spotting the koalas was initially a lot harder than I imagined and at first proved to be the Australian version of ‘Where’s Wally’, however once you know what you’re looking for: a fluffy grey and rust coloured back in the thickest part of the tree (naturally none of them were facing our way) it became much easier.

It was beautifully tranquil as I padded along the raised wooden walkways among the swaying eucalyptus trees and it was a great set up, being a monitored area for wild koalas and not a zoo/ wildlife park/ family fun farm, however I became somewhat alarmed when I became surrounded by a party of German tourists with a guide firing off what I can only assume was koala facts. Perhaps it was because my only contact with the German tongue has been through heavy opera and war films but never have fluffy leaf eating critters sounded so severe as she barked ‘KOALAS SIND BRAUN UND GRAU’ at her enthralled group and I hastily extricated myself and headed back to the coach.

We had a scenic drive to the Penguin Parade, with sunset approaching and a smattering of wallabies bouncing around in the brush at the side of the road. The view of the rugged coastline as we drew into the penguin centre was beautiful and given an especially ethereal quality by the violet sky and dusky light.

All around tourists and parties of local school kids on a trip piled into the dimly lit seats set into the dunes, watching and waiting for the penguins to arrive and I took my place somewhere in the middle, not far from the beach. The rows of curved benches gave it the feel of a Greek amphitheatre bustling with tourists, the majority seemed to be Chinese or Indonesian, calling to each other boisterously over the top of my head and taking the strictly enforced ‘NO PHOTOS’ rule (apparently the light interferes with the penguins’ perception of season and place) as a gentle suggestion.

I began to question if this was really a sensible way to be spending my Monday night as I shivered, pulled my windbreaker tighter and tucked into a bar of Cherry Ripe, reminded of the disclaimer that the penguins don’t always show. However it seemed that a second passed before little shapes suddenly appeared on the sand. The four fairy penguins, looking a little dazed but not perturbed by their vast audience, braced themselves against the swell and stiffly toddled up the beach to their burrows like earnest commuters racing for the Tube with elastic bands around their legs. They came in small groups, sometimes running in and out of the water, ever watchful of predators and fighting the surf which often knocked the feet from under them and left them skittering around in the shallow water. There was a short lull but then they continued to arrive in small battalion after battalion, hurrying towards the grass dunes and making noises which sounded like a mixture between a cats purr and a baby’s cry.

I then joined the large groups following them along the boardwalk back to the colony. It was surprisingly moving to see these little birds who had spent all day at sea returning home and my thoughts turned to my own family, perhaps due to these little scenes of homecoming and reunion.

Despite the consumerist overload of giftshops and cafés, it was a really special experience and definitely worth the day out. Steve conveyed us home with more gags and played ‘So Long Farewell’ from The Sound of Music when the majority of the passengers alighted at Federation Square, very kindly offering a door to door drop off service for the rest of us, whacking on some of his favourite 80s tunes.

I found myself the last one on the bus and Steve invited me to scoot forward to the front. We chatted about this and that- his travels with his ex-wife, my experiences travelling alone. Steve was one of those people you really feel are one of the ‘good guys’ in life and his mournful remark that we spend most of life alone and the sentiment that he has spent most of his life not voicing his thoughts surprised me given his outgoing nature and his earlier larking with young passengers, waving koala and penguin hand puppets.

As he dropped me off at the apartment block and headed back to the bus depot with a wave, it made me ponder the setbacks of solo travel. I definitely feel this is why I enjoy writing this blog- to splurge all those observations that would otherwise remain suppressed and if in life, as Steve said, we really do spend most of our time alone, it certainly gets you used to your own company. I’m quickly learning the difference between being alone and being lonely and forgive me for sounding like a hemp-shirt-wearing-mung-bean-gobbling-gap-yah-minger but these little exchanges with other people along the way are already proving highly enriching.

I’m excited at the prospect of meeting new people at my next destination- provided they don’t leave their condiments where my fingers brush them…..

*this is a blatantly prejudiced assumption of his name he could have been called Kevin

**his name was not Steve