Easter Weekend - Part 2

On Easter Monday we started our first Australian roadtrip. Uber has a car share service in Melbourne, so rather than calling a car and driver, you can just book a car to use. We originally booked a mini, but ended up with a BMW SUV (long story). It was a little bit bigger than what we wanted for our first driving experience, but we figured we would make due. And by 'we', I mostly mean Justin. because he did all the driving.

Our timing for the road trip was strategic. Easter Monday is not really a busy traffic day. There were plenty of people headed back into the city (as I mentioned, Easter Tuesday appears to be a Monash only thing), but traffic headed out was pretty light. As I suspected, Justin adapted really well to driving on the left. By the end of the trip, it was feeling pretty natural for him. As I mentioned in my last post, Phillip island is known for its penguin parade. Justin & I are still adjusting to big city life, where there are lots of people and reservations are required for all kinds of things. We didn't realize you need to get tickets for the penguin parade. By the time we went to book, they were already sold out. So when people from visit us, we are planning to bring them to the island so we can all watch the penguin parade.

On Monday morning we headed towards Phillip Island, a beachy little vacation island about an hour and a half outside of Melbourne. On the way, we stopped in a little village called Loch. We checked out the shops, had some lunch and picked up some craft beer. It was cute, and reminded us both of a slightly less pretty Mahone bay. We continued on our trip, and our first stop on the island was Woolamai beach. The beach is along the southeastern edge of the island, and is known for its surfing. It was a windy day and the tide was on its way in, so the surf was big. Despite the conditions, there were surfers out in the waves. It was wild to watch them - some of them not only successfully caught waves, but managed to stay upright even after the waves had crashed. We hiked around Cape Woolamai, up to the highest point on the island. It was cool to see the whole island, and where we had just come off of the mainland. Not to mention the ocean views were fantastic. Kind of a weird quirk though. As we rounded the cape and started more inland, the track was littered with dead birds. Clearly this was a natural, circle of life thing. The birds had been eaten by some kind of predator (our best guess: even bigger birds) but it was still disconcerting.

Our next stop on the island was a Koala conservation reserve. The reserve is full of tree top walkways where you can get really close to a koala. We saw quite a few. Lots were sleeping up high in the trees, but there were a couple that were only a few feet in front of us. We even got some movement, including jumping from branch to branch, walking up branches and one that scratched its butt for a solid two minutes. There were also wallabies (basically mini kangaroos) on the reserve, so we got to see them hopping around. Thoroughly satisfied with our wildlife viewing, we headed to the hotel to drop our stuff before getting dinner, scoping out the main street in town, and picking up a few more craft beers.

On our second day in Phillip island, we headed to a place called Mod Eisley Cantina. For those of you who aren't aware, this is a play on the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars. Yes, it was Star wars themed. But not in an over the top, disney way. More in an anti-establishment, adult way. There was all kinds of signage about how they didn't carry babyccinos (which is apparently a Melbourne hipster yuppie thing), and the menu included the costs for arguing with the staff about what should be on the menu. I commented that it reminded me of Monty Python's 'did you come here for an argument' sketch. The owner overheard and said that is exactly what it was based on. Needless to say, this place was very much our jam. We got some fantastic breakfast sandwichs/tacos, and continued on our way.

We checked out the main drag of Cowes, the town we were staying in. Lots of surf shops, but also oddities, antiques, and thrift stores. I had some good baking finds in the thrift stores, so that was exciting. I often find smaller towns have better thrift stores because they are less picked over. After we checked out the waterfront, we headed to our next stop: the wildlife park.

Wildlife park sounds very innocuous. We figured it would be like the Shubie wildlife park - essentially a mini zoo. It was kind of like that, in that there were some animals in enclosures. But it was also a giant Australian petting zoo! You even got a bag of animal feed with your ticket. We started with the animals in enclosures: the echidna (which I am strangely fascinated by), the kookaburras, the parrots, some lizards. As we were looking at the animals, we saw some wallabies hoping around, which seemed pretty cool. Still not fully realizing the petting zoo part of the wildlife park, we very cautiously approached some wallabies and were able to feed them and pet them. We also fed the cassowary, who were slightly less terrifying then the ones we saw at the Melbourne zoo, but very much look like dinosaurs (for those who aren't familiar, a cassowary is essentially an emu, but with a blue head and a strange bone-like mohawk thing). I wouldn't say they were aggressive when they pecked at the food, but they certainly weren't gentle. And they did not care if they pinched you.

As we worked our way through the park, we slowly began to realize that at least half the space was essentially just area for free roaming kangaroos. There were so many of them! Kangaroos lounging in the shade, drinking water, eating grass, hopping around. Kangaroos with babies in their pouches, Joeys still nursing, Joeys sticking close to mom. Kangaroos everywhere! And (for the most part) they were all super chill! The really little ones weren't interested in the food, but all of the adults/young adults were happy to be fed and pet. Its hard to describe the sheer numbers of kangaroos in this park. As soon as we entered the part of the park where they were all hanging out, they were everywhere. Interestingly, it seemed like the females were the ones who did most of the moving around. The males mostly lounged around in the shade. They would still definitely eat if you brought it to them. They would even lean forward for it. But they were not interested in getting up. And when I say they lounged, I mean lounged. Male kangaroos look hilarious when they are relaxed. They sort of lay on their sides with their legs stacked on top of each other, and then they hitch themselves up on one elbow. They look like the animal equivalent of lounge singers. Other things we noticed about them:

- The males are clearly more muscular than the females. Specifically in the chest and arms. Their tails are also thicker

- You can see the joeys moving in the pouches from the outside - its kind of freaky

- The joeys are hilariously haphazard about hanging out in their moms pouch. We saw all manner of baby kangaroo parts sticking out of the pouch

- They do in fact have claws. On both their fingers and toes. But the toes specifically look like they can do damage

All told, we ended up spending over two hours in this not-very-big wildlife park because we were so enamored with the kangaroos. We both agree it was the best part of the trip, and we will absolutely go back. After the kangaroos we drove around and saw a few more sights, hit up a bakery, and then headed back to Melbourne. Overall, it has been a very satisfying Easter weekend.