Beth's Oz Adventure

Visited Philip Island just south of Melbourne and most famously home to the little penguins! The tour started with a quick visit to a vinyard and some wine tasting. Then onto wildlife park where we saw lots of native animals, including wombats, tasmanian devils, wallabies, koalas (the largest in Oz apparently), emus, and the best bit got to hand feed the kangaroos! Did get ambushed a bit but they were friendly so was ok! One even had a joey in its pouch which was v cute! Also saw some talking cockatoos which were highly amusing.

Next stop was Point Grant where we got our first view of the penguins (though was v windy so they all stayed near their burrows and didn't want to play!). From here we also saw the seal rocks where the largest colony of fur seals live (could only see the seals with binoculars though as was quite a distance).

Then on to the main event - the penguin parade! At sunset all the little penguins came out from the sea in groups of up to about 10 and waddled up the beach to their nests. They were pretty hesitant and did a lot of diving back into the sea but then finally plucked up the courage to make the walk up the sand dunes, pretty amazing to watch tho sadly no pics allowed because of the camera flashes. Finally a visit to the gift shop where luckily I managed to restrain myself from spending all my money on penguin merchandise!

Overall today was the highlight of my trip so far! (sorry Harold!)

Off to the Great Ocean Road tomorrow for 2 days and then am going to Hepburn Springs (spa town about 2 hours north of Melbourne) on Sunday to do some wwoofing!