Penguin Parade

Our other must-do activity in Melbourne was the Phillip Island Penguin Parade.  I have mom to thank for this, actually.  The tour guide included it originally but I wanted to cut it, but Mom said no way, she wanted penguins.  I am so glad we left it in.

Philip Island was beautiful, but super windy and the waves got massive.  The penguin homes were all around this area, but I would be afraid if I was a penguin having to come in on rough waves over these rocks.  We learned that the penguins come back to next in the same area they were born, so I guess they don't know any different.

The penguins stay out all day fishing, they can actually stay out for a few days if they want.  They come in after sunset to mate, socialize, and re-waterproof their feathers.  Their nests are either in one of these man-made houses, or one they make for themselves.

 They travel the same path back home every night, so it wears these tracks in the vegetation.

We had the upgraded tickets, so we got to sit in a smaller area, much closer to the water.  The normal tickets sat in a big bandstand further down the beach, and much further away from the water.  There was one other option, where you could have a viewing area below where we sat, and look out at the ground level.  A good option if you want to stay dry, but we were above ground, and luckily the rain held out until we were ready to go.  You weren't allowed to take pictures in the are where the penguins came out, but I snuck just this one to show our view.

They came out of the water, over this short beach, the hopped over the rocks to waddle up the path the started just behind that cone furthest to the right.

Our tour guide described the process pretty well: They come out of the water in groups of about 20, then stand around looking all confused for a few minutes while they wait for their friends, then eventually travel as a group up the paths.  Then a new group will come out about 10 minutes later.

Tonight they came ashore in groups closer to 100 most of the time (there were 589 penguins counted the night before), and didn't leave much time between groups, so it was more exciting than usual.  The sea would virtually explode with tiny penguins as they rode the wave ashore, then stood up as the water receded.  Their white bellies shone like mother of pearl, so as they waddled up in a big group, they looked like a school of sardines swimming.  This was my favorite part.

After they got their group together, they would head towards the rocks and hop up (Mom's favorite part), and slowly make their way over them.  Then they would continue up whichever path led to home, and walk sometimes quite a distance, even past the parking lot, to get home for the night.  This led them right past us, and some were so close we could have touched them.  The walkway followed the penguin's path all the way up to the visitor's center, so you could walk right along side them.  We only made it half way before the rain started pouring and we ditched the penguins for cover.  When we got up to the visitor's center, there was a group of penguins right on the sidewalk, trying to get their bearings to find their way back home, while a park ranger roped the area off to make sure we didn't interfere.  Along the way we heard some penguins settling in for the night and making quite a racket.  If you were out there camping, and didn't know they were there, it would be a terrifying sound!

I wish I could have caught this on video for you, it was so cool!  Here is  pretty good representation of what we saw.  This one and this one are also good, but from different areas on the beach than we were, and here are some good pictures.

The penguins we saw were referred to alternately as Little Penguins and Blue Penguins.  They are the smallest penguins on earth.  Their bellies are white so that when predators look at them from below in the water, they blend in with the white clouds, but their backs are dark blue, so they blend in with the dark water when predators from the air are looking down. Those white bellies sure stuck out at night, even in the dim lighting provided, but it sure made a cool effect as they waddled away.

Size comparison to some other penguins.

Stuffed animals can be creepy, but this was my only chance to get an up-close view of them. 

I am pretty sure these were life-sized representations.  Look how little!

If you ever find yourself in any part of the world where you have a chance to see a penguin parade, I highly encourage it. This was a fabulous experience!

Oh, also, according to our tour guide, Chris Hemsworth, a.k.a. Thor, is originally from Philip Island and often comes home and participates in water sports.  So maybe just come here, see the cute little guys, and keep an eye out for a half-naked Thor ;)

The Great Ocean Road

One of the must-do things near Melbourne was to drive the Great Ocean Road.  It was really beautiful the entire drive, including the parts without the sea view.  We passed through quite a lot of farmland (but didn't get any good pictures of this), and saw a ton of dairy cows and some black swans, which I thought were pretty cool.  Apparently all the swans in Australia are black, who knew?

Along the way, we stopped at a nature reserve where we saw wild kangaroos.  They reminded me a lot of wild deer, both in appearance and the way they acted as a herd.  Technically, a group of kangaroos is called a mob.

They spotted us walking up to them.  We didn't get too close to the wild ones, no petting today!

On the way there, we passed through a strip of road with koala crossing signs, and I actually saw two wild kolas hanging in the trees over the road!  Once we got there, we saw some young kolas who had been orphaned, and were being cared for until they were old enough to be released into the wild.  There was a super cute interaction between two of them.  The smaller one tried to back down from his perch, and his butt hit the head of a larger one that was sitting in the crook of the tree.  The larger one was not happy and let out a kind of scream/yelp.  The younger one paused for a second, but had no where else to go so kept moving down, at which point the larger one swatted him in the butt and tried to move him away.  He gave up and turned around as the little one continued to scoot down.  He still wasn't happy when the little one's butt hit his butt, and scooted up the branch a bit.  He was such a grump!  I guess I would be too if someone sat on my head while I was sleeping.

Yes...more kola pictures. But look how cute his hairy little ears are, blowing in the wind!

Eventually the bigger one calmed down as the littler one settled in for a snack.

He was so cute while he was eating!

The biggest sight along the drive was sandstone formations they called the 12 Apostles.  One of the “Apostles” fell about a decade ago due to erosion.  It’s amazing to think that these things have stood for probably thousands of years, yet collapsed in our lifetime.

You can see in the front left portion of the picture the remains of the one that fell.

Some of them had big cracks like this, which made you think they might fall into the ocean t any time.

This was the most crowded of all the tourist attractions we’ve seen.  And maybe also the most exploited.  Our driver told us that we could take a 15 minute helicopter tour over the 12 Apostles….for $150 per person.  And there were helicopters flying, so people are actually paying that!!!

There isn’t much else to say about it, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

We saw more cockatoos in flocks on the ground.  We were only able to get a pic of these two, but isn't it funny to see them like ordinary gulls or pigeons?

 

The Australia Zoo

Just to make sure we got enough of the Australian animals, we took a trip to The Australia Zoo.  This was a zoo originally started, under a different name, by Steve Irwin’s family when he was just a boy.  Over the years, the family grew the zoo, and on Steve and Terri’s honeymoon, they shot the pilot for The Crocodile Hunter, which became a huge hit.  They took some of the profits from the show and re-invested them into the zoo, and now it has become the huge beautiful zoo it is today.  They could have just called this Steve Irwin’s zoo, they had his picture everywhere, and half the souvenirs had him on them.  Not that we minded, we loved Steve and were happy to see him remembered in such a way.

One of the unique things about this zoo is that they would bring the animals out walking on leashes for you to see up close.  Some of them you could even touch gently.

There were two 5-month old tiger cubs being walked around.  They were just as silly and energetic as regular kittens.

This wombat only had one eye, but she was still super cute.  I was able to touch her, and she felt bristly, like a pig but slightly softer.

You could also pay extra (between $25 and $200 depending on the animal) to have a 15 minute up close encounter with the animals.  We didn’t pay extra, but saw the people having the giraffe encounter, where they got to feed them.  We couldn’t get quite as close, but it still brought them close enough we could see just how big their heads really are!  At least as big as a horse, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering how big they are.

Even without paying extra, there were plenty of places where we could get up close.  Bindy’s island had a life-size replica of the tree-house she used on her show years ago, and had 4 lemurs that wandered around freely (but monitored by trainers).  One walked so close to Mom that she was able to just bend down and touch his tail.  Then the trainer yelled at us, apparently you aren’t supposed to touch them, but Mom said he was very soft.

There were a few things to see within the tree-house, but the best part was the view from the top.

See the lemur just chillin' out on the sign behind us?

They also had an area where you could pet and feed kangaroos and wallabies. The wallabies were not being social, but the trainer said they feel just as soft as the kangaroos.  The koala sanctuary only had grey kangaroos, but this one also had the iconic red kangaroos. 

This silly boy couldn't seem to get comfortable.

The koala area had a few koalas you could touch (but not cuddle), and had many up in real trees. 

Look closely at this pic before scrolling down any further.  See if you can spot the koala before I show you where he is.

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Even though they had signs below saying that there was a koala in that tree, they were still hard to find if they were sleeping in a leafy spot.

 

Hard to spot, isn't he?  Also, koalas sleep in funny positions.

I got a big kick out of eating lunch, more or less, with this koala.  His tree was surrounded by lunch tables, so we were still observing the animals as we ate.  Some views overlooked the crocodiles, but I liked this guy better.

We were very excited to finally see a Cassowary, after all that time we tried unsuccessfully to spot them in the wild.

Can you see the horn-like protrusion on the top of his head?

Probably can't tell the scale here, but he's got the body, and size, of an emu.

There were way too many animals for us to share them all with you.  But I’ll leave you with a parting picture of these cuties.

Red panda.  When he went down the tree limb, he loosely gripped it with his back paws, then kind of slid down it, pulling a little with his front paws.

There were three otters, but the move so fast they are hard to capture. They made little crying sounds like a newborn puppy.

Koala Cuddling

Today we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, via river cruise.  This is the entire reason I came to Brisbane, because I knew that here I would be for sure able to cuddle a koala.  Yep, let’s cut right to the good stuff.

Animals I got to touch:

Koala!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A hand-raised and trained dingo puppy.  Very soft.

Emu, he felt like straw, except for that stuff on top of his head, which felt like hair.

Kangaroo!!!  Unbelievably soft.

Animals I got to see but not touch:

Flying Fox (bats).  I am a big bat fan, got a huge kick of them, especially later when they stared to wake up.

Tasmanian Devil.  His buddy was running laps around the enclosure, but a sleeping animal is easier to photograph.

Sleepy wombats, much bigger than I expected, probably the size of a medium dog.

Kookaburra, and lots of other birds I'd never seen before.

This baby koala hanging onto mom.

More baby kola, because can you ever have enough?  Look at those ears!

This place was chock full o’ koalas!  I mean, I know it’s in the name, but we didn’t realize they had over 130!  First thing I did was head to the koala cuddling picture zone, where I got to hold one named Major. He was much heavier than I was expecting, and also not as soft!  We found out later that there are two types, northern and southern koalas, and the southern ones have longer fur (and are presumably softer).  Major felt a lot like a sheep.

How cute is this guy?  Apparently that's comfortable.

Second stop was the kangaroo feeding area.  It was actually hard to find one to feed, they were all having nap time and weren’t really interested in what we were doing.  This turned out to be a good thing, because we could pet them as much as we wanted with no fuss.  They were so soft!!!!  We finally found some that wanted a nibble, and it felt a little funny, like they were scooping the food up with their teeth.  It didn’t hurt at all, but you could definitely feel teeth.  Then they sat and chewed very slowly, like a llama if you’ve ever seen one of those eat.

The other highlight was definitely the platypus.  He’s hard to photograph, he’s really fast!  But here’s a short video:

Who wants platypus kisses?  I do!  But I guess I'll just have to settle for this statue.

The cruise along the river was also a treat in itself, we got to peek in the back yard of some very fancy river side homes.  I definitely suggest this trip if you ever come to Brisbane!

Aren't we the cutest?