The Land of AUS: Phillip Island- Wallabies and Little Penguins

When I first knew I was coming to Australia I googled "Melbourne Tourism" to see what I could do in the area. The first thing that came up was Phillip Island where there are many touristy destinations, farms, conservations areas and zoos. The highlights that I saw were Churchill Farm, specialising in sheep shearing and the Penguin Parade (which I discovered was the second largest attraction in Australia! 2000 people attend EACH DAY).

Germany and I booked our last tour together as I was going to fly out in just over a week and we wanted to have a roommate bonding memory to go with Great Ocean Road.

The first stop on our tour was to the Moonlit Wildlife Sanctuary. Here they had a lot of animals in pens, like wombats, dingos and a tasmanian devil. However, there was also an amazing trail that you could walk down with wallaby food and feed the wallabies that roamed around. Wallabies are just smaller members of the kangaroo family. They are soooo cute! As we are in the middle of Australian spring, there were lots of mommas with babies in their pouches. This was the highlight of my life feeding the little guys

It's hard to see but there are two here, these ones are full size wallabies

feeding a momma with a baby in her pouch

Germany and I feeding the momma

Next we went to Churchill farms, which is a farm specialising in sheep shearing. Apparently a good farmer will shear up to 150 sheep per day! Each sheeps fur is worth over $2. The amount of physical effort it takes to shear this many sheep is the equivalent to running a marathon, every single day!

Half naked sheep. They sit very still though and don't make a sound

This is apparently a comfy way for the sheep to sit. This one didn't seem to mind at all.

This cow had just given birth to a calf. I had to take this picture for my dad. When I was little everytime we passed a field of cows while driving, whoever saw the first cow had to yell out "MY COWS!" and that's how you win. Therefore, this is my cow- hence the pointing.

After the beautiful farm we went to a koala wildlife reserve. I've seen a million koalas by now, but they are just so cute I never get sick of them. Besides, this time I got to see a baby :)

The baby is to the left and above the mother in the tree. It's sleeping standing up! click on the photo to see if in larger form

This sign was amazing, clearly for dumb tourists: do not touch, yell at, shake the tree, or smoke near koalas.

Next we were off to the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory. They had a tour but it cost $12 and all I wanted to do was eat some of the stuff, so we opted out, but, I got a dark mint chocolate bar and it was the best I'd ever tasted.

Finally, we drove to "The Nobbies" which are these mini islands across from the Mornington Peninsula that Australian fur seals and little penguins live on. The seals here don't eat penguins, their main predators for both are great white sharks.

On that lovely note, it was a beautiful sunset. We ate dinner, looked around at the scenery and then off to the Little Penguin Parade. This parade is when all the penguins come in from being fishing at sea for up to four days. They come back to go home to their burrows they've created in volcanic rock. They are only 30cm tall! I wasn't allow to take photos because it blinds the poor little guys, but I have some from the sydney zoo in previous posts, they are the same animal. It is amazing to see something so small travel so far.