phillip island (koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, and little penguins!)

Phillip Island is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Australia. And despite the fact that this meant it would be most-likely full of people… it seemed like a place I really ought to go to anyway. There is a program at Melbourne Uni called the “International Students Outdoor Program.” Basically, they know that international students want to travel and see as much of Australia as possible while they are here, on a student budget, so they offer a bunch of affordable trips to various must-see places. I’ve signed up for five different trips with them, Phillip Island was the first. (I will post entries about the others after they happen… they are: kayaking at dusk (on the Yarra River), a weekend trip to Wilson’s Promontory National Park, a weekend trip down Great Ocean Road, and a trip to Tasmania at the end of the semester.)

The first place we went on Phillip Island was the Koala Conservation Centre, where I finally got to see some koalas! My goodness, they really are * that * cute. They sleep about 20 hours a day, so a lot of seeing them was just gazing up into trees where they were hugging branches and snoozing. But a few of them were awake (at least intermittently) and doing adorable things. I watched one shimmy backwards down a tree branch, and I watched several wake up to scratch and then doze straight back to slumbers. [The top picture is from the Koala Conservation Centre, the other two are actually from the Phillip Island Wildlife Park.]




From the Koala Conservation Centre we went to the Phillip Island Wildlife Park. And… I got to feed wallabies and kangaroos from my hand! Most of the animals in the park are there because they have been injured in the wild, and they are all just the sweetest most adorable creatures imaginable. They eat right out of the palm of your hands, and some of them sort of hold on with their paws (more like claws in the case of the wallabies). I’m going to post about a million pictures on my shutterfly site… but here are a few good ones for now. Smile.




From the Phillip Island Wildlife Park we went to the beach. It had been overcast (but a wonderful temperature) all day. And… when we got out onto the beach the sky started getting darker, the wind started blowing harder… and we found ourselves in the middle of a * huge * downpour. Like a tropical storm. Lily and Carly and I (both Mt. Holyoke) had walked half-way down the beach and found ourselves drenched. So, laughing the whole way, we half ran (only because the wind was pushing us and it was fun… not because we could possibly have gotten any more wet by walking slowly) half skipped, back to the van. My Gore-Tex jacked worked wonders, and my shorts were so wet they couldn’t get any wetter. So while other people huddled in the van waiting for the rest of the group to come back, I puddle-jumped outside. Yep, that’s me. If it’s warm and there is water I’m all about it.

The last event of the day was the famous “penguin parade.” The little penguins/fairy penguins of Australia march out of the water and up the beach to nest for the night, or weeks if they are molting. This, however, has been turned into one of the most obnoxiously commercialized displays of nature I have ever seen. It is a natural phenomenon. The penguins nest there… and have been climbing out of the water and scrambling to the safety of the brush for centuries. However, when you get there, you park in a lot full of tour buses and then have to walk through the gift-shop to get to the beach front (surprise surprise). I went through the indoors as quickly as possible only to find myself amidst hundreds of people and tiered cement steps rising from the sand up the hill. And then… just as it began to get darker, they turned on the stadium flood-lights. And then proceeded to announce over the loudspeaker about how photographing wasn’t permitted because we were guests in the penguins natural habitat. And about how they cross the sands at sun-down because they feel safer in the dark. What?! I did get a very nice view of the very small, very adorable penguins coming trumbling out of the water, waiting for enough friends to feel safe crossing the open sands, and waddling up towards the brush. They really are quite cute, but the place their home as been turned into is really depressing. A natural animal phenomenon turned concrete and stadium-lights.