Tuesday 25 February 2014

Melbourne Botanical gardens and Phillip Island

The Melbourne Botanical gardens are lovely and those who have visited will know that at certain points within the garden you can't see the CBD or city surrounds although you can hear traffic noise.  This was something I wanted to show Jane while she was staying with us.  Before heading to the gardens we had some lunch at Southbank.  Here are some photos of our lovely day out.  (Warning:  long post, photo heavy.)

On the train heading into the city.




A huge beautiful old tree.




This mother duck was leading her ducklings down to the water, very cute.




One of the things Jane wanted to do while she was in Victoria was to see the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island.  We set off Tuesday and decided to make a day of it visiting the Koala Conservation Centre first which is also on Phillip Island.  Jane hadn't had her fill of viewing koalas and to be honest neither had I so we were very happy to see more.

Koalas have a hard bottom covered with their thick fur so they can sit quite comfortably like this for hours.  This link has excellent information about koalas.

We were able to view the koalas from this raised boardwalk. 


Can you see this one hugging the tree?



At the conservation centre there are some very nice walking tracks where we saw a number of Swamp wallabies feeding.



After enjoying our time at the conservation centre we drove to the Nobbies, home to a large colony of fur seals.  Unfortunately we didn't see any seals but we did see spectacular scenery and one lone penguin.



 






One lone penguin under the Nobbies boardwalk.

 
  We were fortunate to see this one as taking photographs of the Penguin Parade is not allowed.  The reason for this is to make sure the penguins are not frightened by flash photography when coming up from the sea at dusk to their nesting/resting sites.  In the past non flash photograph has been allowed but there always is that one person who misunderstands because of the language barrier, so no photography at all is allowed.   These penguins are tiny little birds and have a long way to walk up from the sea.  After they arrive in groups called a raft of penguins, they cautiously make their way up from the sea, sometimes hiding behind rocks until they feel it is safe to continue to their nesting sites.  Sometimes they get the jitters, turn around and go back into the sea only to repeat the process a few minutes later.  The viewing of the penguins is excellent with arena lights showing the penguins more clearly as they approach the dunes.  Once the penguins are on their way up into the dunes, observers are able to walk on the boardwalk which takes you directly past where they are nesting or resting for the night.  There is lighting along the boardwalk so viewing is fantastic.  These gorgeous little birds don't seem to mind being on show and they don't disappoint cuteness wise.  

As we were driving around the island we saw quite a few of these Cape Barren geese which seemed totally unperturbed by the traffic driving by and were happily grazing on the edge of the road.

So there ends Jane's visit to Australia.  We did a number of other things while she was staying like having a family BBQ so other members of my family could meet her, lunch with my sister at a lovely nursery cafe and Jane dragged me (ahem) into a local lounge bar for a sangria.  I've never had the courage to go in their by myself, it was fabulous.  The things two cousins will get up to.

I'm off on Friday to spend three days with my sister-in-law in Adelaide followed by a week and a half with Mum in Western Australia.  The next post will be from either Adelaide or country Western Australia.

Anne  xx

Sunday 23 February 2014

Healesville Sanctuary

Last Sunday saw us heading out to Healesville Sanctuary so Jane could see some of our Aussie wildlife.  Set in bushland, it is probably my favourite zoo of all those I've visited to date.  Here are some photos from the day.

Three excited young ladies.
The keeper giving this platypus a tickle on the tummy.  She loves it.


These next photos are from the bird show.

A black kite flying upside down to catch food tossed up in the air by the keeper, mimicking what they would do in the wild to catch their food.

Barking owl

Buzzard

Wedge tail eagle, a magnificent bird. 



Male Lyrebird performing his dance for his lady friend who wasn't showing the slightest bit of interest.

A dingo pretending to sleep.
Warning:  The next photos feature koalas heavily.  They are just sooooo cute.

This is probably the darkest coloured koala I've seen.  She's a bit grumpy too.

Feeding time, the keeper putting fresh eucalyptus leaves in the enclosure.  It's a small world, this keeper use to be the manager at the local vet where I take my pets.

See what I mean about the grumpy looking koala on the right.

Running to the next tree where the leaves might be better.
These next photos were taken in a different koala enclosure.  The baby is adorable.



Sleepy time now the belly is full.

Tasmanian devil.

Fruit bats/flying fox.

Tawny frogmouth

Rock wallaby eating a slice of sweet potato.

Norm the keeper giving a talk about this Peregrine falcon who is training to participate in the bird show.  This was taken after the bird show.

Hubby took this photo and has forgotten the name of this creature.  It could be a Frilled neck lizard.

Red kangaroo, a big boomer.

Echidna

One more koala just because they are so beautiful.

The wonderful thing about seeing these koalas is how close we could get to them.  We were on a raised boardwalk so were on their level in the trees.

It was so much fun to show Jane some of our unique wildlife and it would be fair to say she was not disappointed by Healesville Sanctuary, the setting, the layout and the animals.

Next post will be about visiting the Melbourne Botanical gardens.

Anne  xx