Going to Australia: Phillip's Island

After our long weekend, we took it slow on Monday. We visited the aquarium then came back to the apartment so the boys could rest. On Tuesday though, we jumped back in a rental car, and Rob drove us all to Phillip's Island. We stopped first at the Koala Conservation Center.

C and one of the huge stuffed koalas at the conservation center.

The Conservation Center had boardwalks amongst the trees to get the visitors a bit closer to the koalas. We saw a lot of koalas here.

We also saw a wallaby. The green thing behind the wallaby is the koala proof fencing to keep the koalas in the Center.

My sister and R, who is pretending to be a koala in the fork of the tree.

My sister and C who is also pretending to be a sleepy koala in the fork of a tree. (If you help one kid into the tree, you have to help the other too!)

Pretending to drive a tram.

After the Koala's we headed to a Go-Kart track so C and Rob could drive go-karts. On the way there we saw a mob of kangaroos. The story is they used to be a wild mob, but were fed by the locals, and a fence was put up to keep them safe from the cars. They seemed pretty content with their situation...

That night we went to the Penguin Parade. The largest flock of Little Penguins in the world nests on Phillips Island. Every night they come in from fishing in the ocean, waddle onto the beach, and up into the rocks and hills to nest. They form into large groups- sometimes up to 75-100 penguins and waddle up the beach together for safety. It was incredible to watch several of these groups appear out of the ocean and waddle past us to their nests while calling to each other. We were given strict instructions on how to behave, we were in stands and could not go past the railings, we had to be quiet, and we could not take pictures. I found this picture on the web so you could see what they look like.