The Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island

Ryan and I went on vacation this weekend! We took a bus tour along the Great Ocean Road - a highway that stretches from Melbourne to Adelaide built by government employed WWI veterans. We didn't drive the entire stretch of the road, but we covered a good portion of it. We drove about 200km, stopping literally every 20 minutes to see the beaches from a new and different angle. Here is a photo of the 12 Apostles, which is the sightseeing highlight from Day 1:

We were traveling with a pretty eclectic group of primarily Asian tourists and all spent the night together in a house out in Apollo Bay. While trying to entertain ourselves, Ryan challenged a 10 year-old Polish kid to a dance off. He definitely lost:


The second day we went on a nature hike, for which one of the Asian girls refused to get off the bus. Here are some trees:

Then we went and saw some koalas in the wild which wasn't too exciting since they just sleep high up in trees. Here's Ryan being a Koala:

While looking at Koalas, a lot of people started feeding parrots as well. I avoided this due to my averseness to bird poop.


Then my camera died (of course) so I have no photos of us feeding/petting the kangaroos at the petting zoo. We also saw some dingoes, emus, tasmanian devils, and a wombat. Here's a pretty long video of some of the video highlights from the trip:

After that, my video camera died and we saw a lot more kangaroos at the zoo, some wild wallabies, and the penguins coming in at Phillip Island.

When the penguins get in to shore at dusk on Phillip Island, they waddle up to find their little holes they live in and swap places with their mates who are sitting on the eggs and keeping them warm. The penguins have to eat half their weight in fish to stay alive, so they spend entire days at a time fishing. While looking for their homes, they call out to their mates who call back to them and they keep making noise until they waddle into each other. It was pretty adorable. It puts Maura and my penguin documentary to shame.

Overall, the vacation was really nice but incredibly exhausting. Running around trying to see everything on the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island in two days is tough. Especially when you are getting woken up before sunrise to go see koalas. Definitely worth it, but it's nice to be back home where we're allowed to sleep for more than four hours at a time. I also finally reached my goal of seeing a kangaroo/wallaby in the wild!!