Melbourne Trip (2 ~ 8 July) Day 5

In 6 July...

Today we are going to go to Philip Island, place that is pretty famous in Melbourne, or maybe around the world, due to the Penguin Parade. I was warned by many frens that Philip Island is freezing, so I was well prepared for it too.

But Philip Island day tour starts in the afternoon, so what should we do in the morning? Well, we went to The University of Melbourne, top university in Australia. However I am a little bit disappointed after I reached there (sorry melbournians). The buildings are neither as organized as in UNSW, nor they are as old as the ones in UniSyd or UQ, but I cant deny its reputation across the globe. Photo time!!!

University of Melbourne

Me and Pizza..

Our tour guides are not here, so I dont know what is the building behind me..

Unimelb famous for medicine, sure have to come... if not Andrew will be angry, keke..

We quickly made our way to city centre, and have our lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. After that, we waited for the coach to come. The coach came, and of course we grabbed some nice seats this time, keke.

Pizza was still recovering from Mt Buller

After 1 hr journey, we stopped at a small farm, where we were allow to handfeed kangaroos and wallabies. It wasnt new to me to feed kangaroo, but it seemed new to Jason and Pizza (they were crazily happy when doing that). I fed the kangaroos, and also geese (this is my first time feeding geese, they are small, but big eaters) We have some nice photos there, and after 45 mins, we leaved.

Eat eat...

Pizza and Jason went crazy when feeding kangaroos

Geese are really big and fast eaters.

Wallaby!?

Next, we reached at Wildlife conservation centre, and of course the focus it koalas! Again it was not new to me, and we rarely find koalas there (isks, and there are so high up the trees). Disappointment, if you really wanna see koalas closed up, or even wanna cuddle one, come to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane. We have hundreds of koalas here, in fact the largest koala conservation centre in the world!! (advertising...)

Me and a koala - similarity: lazy

Dont disturb me, ok?

We continued our journey on the coach, and soon we reached the Nobbies, place that is famous for seeing fur seals. That is just a stopover, and of course we didnt see seals (they are far away). The place is really windy, I felt the wind is pushing me towards the sea (man I am so heavy yet i felt it). It was sunset then, and so we have got some nice pics of sunset.

the Nobbies, entrance only

Haha, me in front of the place where fur seals come

Sunset at the Nobbies

We reached the focus of the day, the place for Penguin Parade at around 5pm. It was a small building with information centre, exhibition about penguins, some food outlets and souvenir shops. We have some photos here, coz it is forbidden to use camera during the Penguin Parade.

Entrance of Penguin Parade

This is not the real one, of course, hehe

We walked to the sitting place where penguins can be seen. Unfortunately all the nice seats were occupied and we really didnt have a choice. After 15 mins of waiting, the first group of penguins surfaced and they walked away from us (sob... sob.. cant really see, i should have brought binoculars). Most of the time we actually saw seagull walking and flying around (haiz). The penguins are really selective, they always walk towards the viewing platform (you need to pay more to be there). To make it worse, during winter penguins dont really go hunt in the sea, so less penguin coming back. I would say this was not penguin parade, but seagull show. The air was not really freezing, and some people even bring blankets there (crazy!!). But there is one extra bonus, with extra dim light, we got to see the sky full with stars and it was spectacular.

We leave after one hour, and hopped on the bus and leaved. We stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant at Cowes Jetty, and that was expensive and the food is no good compared to Sydney. Haiz then we went back to Melbourne city.