This day started outside my hotel again, but not until about 1010 when I was picked up. That is because the tour ends with the Penguin Parade, which doesn't start until about dusk. far away from the city.
We started off once we were all on board the bus with our tour guide Bob. Our first stop was in Brighton Beach (Australia of course!) for one of the city's most colorful attraction: the Brighton Beach bathing boxes.
In the nineteenth century, Brighton, on Port Phillip Bay in Bayside, was Melbourne's premiere seaside destination. Bathing boxes are intrinsic to Port Phillip Bay and Western Port. Bathing boxes had their origins in multiple places (as a result of Victorian morality) including Australia, England, France, and Italy.
In the case of the Brighton bathing boxes, they are unique in their uniform scale, proportion, building materials, and the way they line up like sentries along the beach. They all must be constructed of timber framing, weatherboards and corrugated metal roofs. Within that framework and set of rules, however, they are able to be easily differentiated through the owner's ability to personalize them with minor structural, artistic and color variations. According to Bob, there are 93 boxes in this area. They can have no amenities such as electricity or running water connected, and they can't be used for sleeping. Even so, they are often passed down through generations of family members and can sell for as much as 300,000 to 500,000 AUD.
Next on the tour for the day was a visit to Moonlit Santuary Wildlife Conservation Park.
Moonlit is a relatively new park, which opened in 2001. Its mission includes the display of fauna that was found in its home area prior to European settlement along with working toward the recovery of threatened species in Australia. It operates evening walks which it calls 'environmental immersion experiences. During the day, it operates more like a normal zoo/animal sanctuary.
In total over 400 animals representing over 60 different species call the sanctuary home. I can't even begin to list all of what I saw/heard/read. You will see below the pictures I managed to capture. I copied this, about their conservation efforts, from an online source: "Moonlit has successfully bred a number of rare and endangered species including southern bettong (aka eastern bettong), eastern quoll, Julia Creek dunnart, fluffy glider (yellow-bellied glider) and squirrel glider. The eastern quoll and southern bettong are now extinct on the mainland and only found in the wild in Tasmania. In 2016 it opened a new breeding facility for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrots, designed to house up to 20 pairs."
I am including a couple of videos, because I actually managed to capture both a wombat walking around and a koala walking around. All my other attempts have been very successful at capturing them sleeping (or perhaps stretching), but not actually awake and walking!
Moonlit has kangaroos and wallabies. I was able to feed a wallaby (photos 6 & 8) out of the palm of my hand. The only problem was there are a lot of ducks wandering around Moonlit. And wallabies are smaller than kangaroos. Even though the wallaby was trying to eat, the ducks were very aggressive, and kept butting my hand with their beaks to make me drop the food.
This is a spot tailed quoll video.
Dingos! Another one later in the 'show'.
The show. Including dingo, barking owl and potoroo
On the route to the Penguin Parade viewing area, we were able to stop at Point Grant to get some photos. The next stop of at The Nobbies, but the (if you don't like it wait 5 minutes) weather that day chose that time to open up the skies to torrential, blowing sideways in the wind, rain. So we headed off on the final leg to the penguins instead. These pictures are from Point Grant.
Phillip Island has the largest population of little penguins in the world, currently estimated at about 40,000. These are the smallest penguins, measuring about 30-35cm (12-13") high, with blue feathers. Every night, rafts of penguins come ashore at dusk and start their waddling off to the barrows that can be up to 2-3km away. The actual numbers that come onto land each night varies. The night before I was there about the count was 1,057. Today, the count was over 1,100.
There was an oil spill off Phillip Island in January 2000 that led to a worldwide appeal for hand-knitted woolen penguin sweaters/jumpers that helped them survive. You can see some of the original sweaters at the visitor center.
The photos above show a few burrows, one with a penguin in their sleeping. Photography is not permitted once the sun goes down, but there is QR code available onsite to a link to download free photographs.
Here are a few short videos as well:
And thus ends my last excursion while in Melbourne. What could be better?
Tomorrow I leave for Adelaide. Much more to come!
The Brighton Beach bathing boxes sound so fascinating!
At Moonlit, Sounds like a great experience seeing those rare species!
On Phillip Island, Amazing to see so many little penguins coming ashore!