My first weekend in Australia will remain one of the greatest highlights of my life.
It all started when Jacques* suggested we take a trip out to Phillip Island. Having known very little about the place, his selling point “penguins on the beach at sunset” had sold me!
We hopped into the car midday and began the two hour drive out east. With some traffic congestion throughout the city, we debated a few minutes on re-routing our adventure to St. Kilda (the beach side of Melbourne), but I’m so glad we pushed through on course.
Before entering Phillip Island, we visited Maru Koala & Animal Park, a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of a small country town about an hour outside of the city. Fun fact: Here in Victoria (the state that Melbourne is in), people reference to Melbourne as the city and “country Victoria” as anywhere in the country outside of the city. It’s almost the same as me saying I live in NYC, but I’m from country NY (rather than upstate NY). It totally makes sense, but I was a bit confused at first when people would tell me they were from country Victoria (like… there’s a country named Victoria, too?!).
Anyways, it was at Maru Koala Park that I got to see a koala for the first time in real life.
And also got the chance to feed dozens of kangaroos, including a few joeys!
This was one of the most magical adventures! Mostly because the animals were so tame, and these “ferocious” creatures were so sweet and loving, allowing me to pet them behind the ears and on their backs! If they would have snuggled, I would have done that too.
I saw some other animals like dingos, wombats, and the native kookaburra bird (I happened to catch them while they were in the middle of a loud, obnoxious call). I was in animal-heaven!!
After leaving the animal wonderland, we made our way a bit further (~30 miles) to Phillip Island.
Phillip Island is a nature park that houses a wildlife conservation project for some of Australia’s natural inhabitants – 330 native species live here! Not only is the park filled with animals, but the island has 60 miles worth of gorgeous coastline on the pacific.
When entering the island from the mainland, the first town we passed through was Cowes – comparable to the Hamptons or Cape Cod. The beautiful Golden Cypress tree-scapes and lengthy beach views made this a wonderland of beauty! We passed through town and stopped for lunch at Fortuna Fish & Chips. Let’s just say I’ve met my annual quota on fish and chips.
One food coma later and we pushed on to our next destination, The Nobbies.
The Nobbies is the southwestern tip of the island – just think spectacular 180 views of pure ocean and cliff-side seabird gardens. Amazing.
After taking in the views and freezing our butts off, we made it over to the penguin parade area where we would see penguins emerge from the ocean after sunset.
This tourist attraction offers a rehabilitation effort for the little penguins (also known as fairy penguins) and the 1,805 hectares (or 4,460 acres) of natural park land. The little penguins (~13 inches tall) would flock out to the ocean for a week’s time and return to tend to their burrows and eggs on the shoreline.
Unfortunately, I was unable to catch any photos of the little guys, but I can tell you I will always remember the sound of their little waddling march on the wet beach. About 1,000 are counted each night and I saw probably a third of that emerge from the water and make their way up to the wetland areas where they returned to their nests. Not only did I get to see these guys cross the 40 yards’ worth of beach, but also up along the pathways as we were exiting the park – they were within inches from me!
It was a magical day filled with so many beautiful creatures with pretty amazing company (both humanlike and not). I just can’t get over how hard I am falling for the wildlife here! And can we talk about the smell of gum trees? I wish I could provide some smell-o-vision right now…
❤ nomademoisellemel
*My lovers name has been changed… really, for no purpose other than to be mysterious (and because he asked me to do it in case of a paparazzi scenario).
nomademoisellemel 