I am putting this statement on the table…Yesterday was the best day of my entire life. My family would say “Woah, you’re really gonna put that out there?“- Absolutely. 

A few us students were a little reluctant to pay $99 (discounted student price) for a tour to Phillip Island, but after experiencing the adventure I would go back in a heartbeat and even pay $200. We all woke up from an interesting night out to say the least and mozied our way to the tour bus. Fifteen Penn State students squished onto a tour bus and made our way to the first destination and the highlight of the trip: Maru Koala and Animal Park

We ate lunch at Maru which was a “bread roll with salad” which is similar to America’s hoagie or sub. It consisted of chicken, a weird cheese (we weren’t sure if it was soggy or a pasty cheese) lettuce, tomato and cucumbers- not exactly what I would want on my sub, especially since I use to work at a pizza and sub shop in high school. I rushed to eat my food and ran into the animal park. I had to idea what to expect but I did not expect anything close to what we did.

We stepped into a play area filled with wallabies and koala bears; my heart instantly filled with love and happiness. We were able to feed, take pictures, play with them, and watch them hop around the area.

I was able to hold a koala named Desmond and get pictures with the sleepy friend.

Koalas are such interesting creatures because they sleep 20 hours a day and wake up basically just to eat their eucalpytic leaves. In this video Bradley is talking about the myth of koalas being seen as “high” from the eucalyptic trees. 

VIDEO to be posted shortly!

We learned that the koalas’ only source of food can be the eucalyptus tree leaves which do not have enough nutritive value in order for it to stay awake all day, therefore they are not actually “high”.

After playing with koalas and wallabies we went to the dingos, emus, wombats, tazmanian devils, and birds. Here is another video of my reaction towards the emus basically taking off my hand.

VIDEO to be posted shortly! 

Summary of the animals: the emus were scary and huge, and the rest were all sleeping. We then walked onto an animals lovers paradise; the land of kangaroos. The three type of kangaroos we played with were Eastern Grey, Western Grey, and Kangaroo Island kangaroos. There was a female albino joey named Luna and she was so adorable. Her father named Ice was also albino.

Fun Fact:  Every 1 out of 17,000 kangaroos are white or albino.

I was so caught up in my heaven of animals that I lost track of time and was late for the bus! I did not want to leave and I have been really considering on changing my life plan now to move to Phillips Island and work at Maru.

The rest of the trip was completely undescrible. I am posting pictures but it doesn’t even do justice for the feelings, expressions, and sites that I experienced. The next place we went to was a popular surfing beach with beautiful sand dunes. We obviously had to take a jumping picture, climb the dunes, and get our feet wet in the water. 

We then went to Pyramid Rock where the Pyramid Rock Rock Festival is held. It is a magnificent site to see.

We got a group picture here and the tour company, Autotopia, put it on their facebook page and said they might make it a brochure cover! The next stop was dinner by the ocean and I ate the best fish and chips I have ever had! The chips had cheese and gravy on them! My dad would say “There’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited!”.

After our amazing seaside meal we went to visit The Nobbies Center which has a magnificent coastal view that extends forever. At The Nobbies Center there are Silver Gull bird lookouts, Fur Seal colony rocks, and the Little Penguin houses. For more information go to this website http://www.visitphillipisland.com/listing/the-nobbies/ . This website provides great information about the seal colonies but we actually were not able to see them at that time.

We had our first encounter with a wild wallaby too! It is so amazing to see them in their natural habitat rather than in a zoo or reserve like how we saw them earlier at Maru.

Shortly after The Nobbies Center, we drove to the Penguin Parade.

The Penguin Parade is on the beach where each night at sunset the penguin species named Little Penguins return to shore after searching for food all day. The Little Penguin is the worlds smallest penguin that waddles up onto the shore to their sand dune nests around 9pm every night for safety from land and sea predators. For a comparison they are about the size of my foot!

 Overall, this day trip was the so amazing. I learned a lot about the animals and Phillip Island and made great memories that I will have forever. I hope to go back someday because it would never get old! 

(P.S. Sorry for the videos missing they will come soon! Picture from this trip will be posted in the photos soon as well.)