Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tour - May 29, 2012

I just got back from doing the Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tour and had to blog about it immediately! I had the best day ever, and wanted to make sure I wrote about it while it's still fresh in my head so that I didn't miss any of the awesome details. So the day began with me getting on the Go West bus, which holds no more than 20 people. This company is great because it's a smaller bus so it's more interactive, and can make more stops, rather than a large coach bus. Our tourguide's name was Dave. He was extremely friendly and very funny. There were people on our tour from Canada, America, Germany, Sweden and a bunch of places in Asia.

Our driver Dave and the Penguins on his dashboard

Farmland on the drive

My seat from the back of the bus after meeting my new Canadian friends

 At our first stop for lunch, I met the other two Canadians on board when waiting for lunch at the fish and chips place. Their names were Steve and Stephanie - really nice people. We agreed to team up for the day, which turned out great. I convinced them to get the flake and chips, which they'd never had before. They were hesitant as I had been the first time I tried it, but they ended up loving it! We ate lunch on the bus while we drove to our first destination, the chocolate factory! I loved our tourguide, because he would always play a song that related to where we were going just before we arrived. He ended up playing a song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which was very fitting and made us all laugh. The place was fantastic! We got free chocolate samples upon arrival, and then headed into the rooms to see how it's all made. We saw a room of all the raw materials, and then learned what you do with those materials in order to make delicious chocolate. We were also able to  play games to win free chocolate. Steve was really good at the one game and got chocoalte for himself, Stephanie and I. We also go to take a picture with giant plastic chocolate and make designs with chocolate that hardened and we got to eat. We also saw a huge waterfall of chocolate,which looked fantastic. It wasn't quite the same as Willy Wonka's factory, but it was still pretty awesome!

Chocolate Factory!

Map made of chocolate

He's made entirely of chocolate

If you look closely, the entire picture was made of chocolate

Chocolate town with a train running through it

Chocolate Moose

This room looked more like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory

Chocolate waterfall

Yay chocolate!

Shoes made entirely of chocolate

Our bus

Then we headed out to the koala conservation centre. This was one of my favourite stops of the day. We got to walk around in a natural habitat where there were lots of koalas in the trees, as well as right on the ledges in front of us. We were really lucky to see so many of them awake, because koalas are actually only awake for four hours of the day. We even got to see a little baby one jumping between trees. The great thing is they don't seem spooked by humans being there, so they don't move when you try to take a few pictures. They were so adorable! We also got to see a number of wallabies hopping around. The one little guy was munching away on some fruit for a while and basically posing for us. It was so amazing to see these animals! It was a huge highlight of the tour.

This is what a koala looks like when it's born

Our tourguide Dave teaching us about koalas

Our first koala sighting!

We were able to get surprisingly close to them

First wallaby sighting!

He was so cute!

We also saw a Kookaburra (Australian bird)

 Next we headed off to a winery, where we did some wine tasting and had cheese on bread and fruit. We sampled about 6 different wines. My favourite was the last one which was a dessert Riesling white wine. I was very tempted to buy a bottle of it. I was reminded by Steve and Stephanie though that wine is super cheap in Australia (I've seen some bottles for as little as $2.50), so I postponed. It was fun to smell and taste all the different wines though, and learn about them from our Scottish leader. We loved all the different cheeses we tried on our bread and jams, as well as the fruit. It was a great way to relax and appreciate the different tastes of the wine.

The lovely table set up for our wine tasting

My favourite wine was the dessert Riesling

 When we finished our wine, we headed off to the Nobbies. This is where we were able to walk along a huge boardwalk and see absolutely breathtaking views. I was actually speechless. It was an area where a volcano had formed a bit of land near the coast. The scenery was just amazing! I really could have stayed there for hours just taking it all in. We also kept an eye out for penguins in case they were nesting under the boardwalk, but unfortunately we didn't spot any. I really can't do the place justice just with words, so I'll post lots of pictures!

Finally, we headed to the Penguin Parade! There we were able to look around in the Pavillion before we met our guide along the way to our seats. He had hot chocolate (Milo) and cake waiting for us, which was a great way to keep warm while waiting by the shore for the penguins. We sat in the stands and waited. They were late, but they eventually did come. It was so adorable! They come in with the tide and waddle their way onto the beach. Then they waddle down a path and veer off from the group when they reach their specific nesting spots. They come in packs usually. It's funny and really cute to watch, because they sometimes stop and wait if they are unsure or scared. They then wait until one leads and the rest quickly waddle behind. They are very small penguins too! They make these funny sounds calling their mates from the water to come nest. Some of them got confused thinking it was mating season, so we witnessed a few of them trying to mate as well. We paid an extra fee of $15.00 to get the Penguin plus seats. This means that we'd have less people and a better view of the penguins. It was definitely worth it as I was about two feet from the penguins for most of it. You're not supposed to take pictures of them, but my friend snapped a quick one, so I'll post it when I can get it off of him.

Anyways, the entire day was absolutely amazing. I loved every minute of it and can't wait for my tour of the Great Ocean Road coming up this Friday! It's with the same company so it's bound to be a great day. Today felt like I was really experiencing some of the great things that Australia has to offer. It made me want to do a lot more travelling around the country. I'll have to save up so that I can see and do it all!