Phillip Island!

Some of the Loyola girls got together and planned a day trip down to Phillip Island. Phillip Island is located off the shore of Australia and is well known for their penguin and seal inhabitants. Our trip including stops at a winery, a chocolate factory, a koala conservation and finally (the big event) the PENGUIN PARADE!

We had to catch the bus from the city so we woke up early enough to leave time for a stop at starbucks : ) I was so happy to see that they had bagels and cream cheese. Australians really don't have much of either here, many of them don't understand what the difference is between a bagel and a doughnut. They are missing out. After our delicious breakfast we headed off to wait for the bus to come pick us up.

Our first stop was at the Bass River Winery. We drove out into the country and quickly encountered a bunch of hills and valleys. Our destination was a tiny little house surrounded by tons of grape trees. However, because the grapes were ripe all of the trees were covered in nets to protect them against birds and bugs. An Italian-Australian family owned the winery, and they prided themselves greatly in their heritage. Personally, I really enjoy wine and have always wanted to learn more about it. I was really excited to see the place and process of how wine is made. We were allowed to sample about six different wines accompanied by some cheese, grapes and olives. It is always so hard for me to decide which wine I enjoy the best because they all have such a different taste. I used to always favor red wine, but lately I seem to enjoy white wine a little more. Homemade wine from the winery really does taste better than store brought bottles. Each taste we had was very fresh and crisp, We also learned a little bit about wine tasting in regards to the legs of the wine and how it needs to breathe. Overall the experience was very enlightening however I would still like to learn more about wine tasting, especially since I cannot seem to decided which one I like best!

After the winery we hopped back into the tour van and made way to the chocolate factory! American coffee and bagels, Italian wine and Belgium chocolate. Such a great start to the day : ) Chocolate is actually not produced in Australia. They ship it in from Belgium, melt it, and add some of their own ingredients. However, it was still incredibly delicious. We took a tour of the factory which was really more like a mini museum. They showed the process of each step including how all the chocolate is crushed and mixed. The factory also had a giant chocolate waterfall that went off every three minutes! After many, many free samples and some purchases we climbed back onto the bus and headed on to our next stop.

Next stop was the koala conservation! Even though I have seen koalas a few different times now I still get really excited. Watching animals that are completely indigenous to Australia is really cool. They literally do not exist anywhere else in the world (at least in their natural habitat.) Koalas are also amazing to watch because they stay so still while they sleep making them look like they are not even real. They literally look exactly like stuffed animals attached to trees. We also go to see a baby koala! It was so cute and tiny! After drooling over the baby we traveled on further and were lucky enough to find some wallabies. Wallabies look just like kangaroos except that they are much smaller. While wallabies weigh anymore from four to fifty pounds and are about twelve to twenty four inches in height, kangaroos can weigh up to two hundred pounds with a height of up to eight feet! The wallabies were still really cool to watch though and other than the difference in size they look exactly a kangaroo. I'm also intrigued by how they hope. Everyone here doesn't seem to think that it is a very big deal but I've never seen an animal travel like that before! My goal is to see a wild kangaroo hop around in the wild before I leave. All of the Australians say that kangaroos are "EVERYWHERE" but I have yet to see one hopping around, hopefully soon!

Finally we made it to our last stop- the penguins! This part of the island is marked as a well known tourist trap called the penguin parade. The penguins stay in the water all day and climb out onto the land at night to sleep. All of the tourists line up on a large set of bleachers right near the waters edge to watch the penguins waddle up together to their homes. The penguins travel into the water before sunrise and after sunset because they prefer the dark for protection against predators. The babies stay on land in hiding all day because their feathers aren't developed enough yet to be water proof. The people who work for the penguin parade are able to time exactly when the penguins will begin to climb out of the water (it changes every night.) At 7:48 we were able to see the beginning of the parade! The penguins prefer to travel together in big groups, so if one comes out of the water alone he will jump back in to wait for the others to join. We couldn't see too clearly from the bleachers so we traveled down towards the boardwalk. Here we could see tons of a tiny little penguins! I realize that everything in this blog sounds pretty cliche (the "beautiful sites" and adorable "baby koalas") but the way that these little penguins waddled was the cutest thing I have seen here so far. The communication and team work that they had amongst each other was incredible as well. If one penguin out of the whole group stopped for a little, the entire pack would also stop until the first was ready. We weren't allowed to take any photos so as not to disturb the penguins natural habitat. I was pretty bummed about that but it is probably for the better of the penguins. You will just have to take my word for it that they were adorable : )