MONDAY – DECEMBER 16, 2013
BOTTOM LINE:
Explored from Leongatha to Phillips Island
Saw first Koala
BACK STORY:
Seal Rock off Phillips Island was our destination. We had been told that Wilson’s Promitory to
the north of Leongatha is a MUST SEE.
Unfortunately that was in the opposite direction of our travels. Pictures of the area look amazing, but we
have found flowery descriptive words and professional photos rarely define the
truth.
We took the coastal route to Seal Rock and took every possible
turnoff in between. The Twin Reefs, the Shale Rocks, the Caves and Eagles Nest were all stops and short hikes along the
way.
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| Eagle's Nest |
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| The Caves |
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| Superb Fairy Wren |
One of our favorite stops was at the Koala Conservation
Center. For seven weeks we have kept our
eyes open to see koalas in the wild. No luck!
We have seen kangaroos, birds, emus, fox, possum, wombat, but no koalas.
The conservation center is a large natural habitat outside where
the facility takes care of koalas that have been rescued and use them to
educate people about them. The inside
exhibits were very interesting and it was fun to finally see koalas!
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| Koala Conservation Center |
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| Amount of food eaten by a Koala in one day |
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| Trail warning at Koala Center!!! |
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| Koala in tree |
Arriving to Seal Rock took us about 3 hours with our stops. There is a large information center with café
and gift shop. The big draw to the
location are the penguins. Each night
the roosting penguins walk by a paying audience to essentially go to bed
(nest)!
Off the tip of the Island are a cluster of rocks which are home to
seals. On the hills behind the center is
a rookery for silver gulls. Again we had
the place virtually to ourselves.
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| Fog coming in at Seal Rock |
On the way back to our hotel, we made a stop at a chocolate
factory. Luckily it was open, but
unfortunately they wanted $15 each to walk through the processing part. We walked through the gift shop, accepted two
small samplings and left.
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