Today I took off on my full day tour of Phillip Island (90 minutes from Melbourne) with Bunyip Tours!
There were about 20 of us spending the day together, starting with an early morning pick up from each of our hostels. After driving for about an hour we stopped at The Moonlit Sanctuary where we were greeted by one of the owners, Steve, and his pet snake named Pug! The group took turns taking pictures with 'it?'. I just settled for a picture beside Steve and Pug.
The Sanctuary was so amazing, for $2 you could buy food to feed the kangaroos, wallabies and the Emu which was slightly aggressive.
I was finally able to see my first alert Koala - the rest had been passed out in a tree. I learned I can't really blame them as they survive solely on eucalyptus which provides little energy, causing the koala's to sleep for 20 hours each day !
I was also lucky to meet my first Dingo! If you are unfamiliar, I like to think of them as a mix between a dog and a fox. We didn't get to pet them, but they were still amazing from a distance.
There were a number of other Australian animals we got to meet at The Moonlit Sanctuary, including a wombat, more Tasmanian devils and a cockatoo bird!
Can you spot the wallabies hairless Joey?
After a quick lunch we hopped back in the tour bus and headed to Cape Woolami and Anzacs Beach, where I met an interesting fisherman along the shore. He was hoping to catch salmon but wasn't having too much luck - look at the size of the fishing rod!
Next we headed out to Churchill Island Farm where we saw two presentations. One informed us on the history of sheep sheering, followed by a live demonstration! I was happy to hear it didn't hurt the sheep at all :)
The second presentation briefed us on training a working dog, followed by another demonstration of sheep herding!
The Churchill Island Farm had a number of animals on site including ferrets, horses, peacocks and on our way out, The Scottlish Hyland Cattle.
Following the farm, we traveled to the Nobbie rock platform, where we walked the boardwalk, looked at seals and sea birds and observed a blow hole! Our tour guide, Steve, then brought us to the location of the highly anticipated Penguin Parade.
The penguins are called 'little penguins' and are the smallest penguins in the world. Each sunset, over 1000 tourists literally wait for the penguins to surf to shore for the night.
On my way to the bathroom I met this little guy!
We were not aloud to take any pictures of the parade as it causes damage to their eye sight but it was definitely worth the wait. If you want to see what they took like, learn more and perhaps adopt a penguin!
Check out their website here : http://www.penguinfoundation.org.au/
Back in Melbourne for the night - busy day again tomorrow !
No comments:
Post a Comment