Tag Archives: koala

On The Road Again (Melbourne Day 1)

Our first impression of Melbourne has been as expected, an art and food capital of Australia. After checking into our Airbnb, we went to Downstairs Bistro & Lounge for dinner, and enjoyed a lovely meal with great service. We spent the night repacking, and the next morning headed out with the Echidna Walkabout Tour to explore the Great Ocean Road!

The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is a roughly 250 kilometer road built right along the cliff edge of Southern Australia (map below). This area has a temperate Mediterranean climate, with very windy coastlines and inlands of dry and hot weather. Rainfall varies depending on location, and all sorts of environments exist here, including wetlands, rainforests, dry forests, beaches, and more. The road was built by returned soldiers between 1919-1932, and is considered the largest war memorial in Australia, dedicated to those soldiers killed during WWI. It has been extremely useful for the timber industry, and now is a huge tourist attraction.

Great Ocean Road map (http://www.atn.com.au/topdestinations/victoria/great-ocean-road.html)

You Yangs

Our first official stop was at the You Yangs Regional Park, a granite range Southwest of Melbourne that is part of Parks Victoria. We spent the morning exploring, and didn’t see much during our first walk, but throughout the day saw countless kanagroos and wallabies, several koalas, and various birds. One of my favorites was spotting two red and blue parrots! Their colors are so vibrant and beautiful, especially to see in the wild.

A “mob”of kangaroos

Koala in You Yangs Park

We spent a couple hours searching for wildlife and koala hunting (or more appropriately, blob hunting through the treetops. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at a cook-out area, next to a grassy field where a group of kangaroos were residing. They staying during the whole lunch, which our guide said was a first for him! Our guide also used water and leaves off a hand-picked branch of a Eucalyptus tree to make “Hillbilly tea.” By swinging the teapot around in a circle like a softball pitch, the leaves and particles are pushed to the bottom of the pot, giving the tea a clear pour. It was fun to watch and delicious to drink!

Lunch with the kangaroos

Serendip

After exploring a bit more, we headed to a neighboring park, Serendip. This park is used for wildlife research, captive management, and breeding of threatened species. Just as we entered, we came across three emu’s taking a stroll! We watched them for a while, then walked around the lake and through a dried-up lake. Southern Australia has been in severe drought, and the area we walked through used to have water up to shoulder-level just a year ago. In fact, the park system had resorted to putting some feed out for the emu’s earlier in the season since conditions were getting so harsh. However, luckily for the land, our arrival also brought rain, which made the community and animals in the area quite happy! We spotted wallabies, various birds, another koala, and even two possums at this park!

Little River

Our evening accommodation was in this tiny town, at a beautiful bed and breakfast called the Little River B&B. We had a fantastic suite-like room, and the property was uniquely decorated with old-fashioned trinkets. We took a walk down by the river that ran behind the property, and got a look at the old-fashioned homes that made up the small village. For dinner, the tour made reservations for us at the Little River Hotel, a restaurant right next to the b&b. Although it was a pretty basic pub-like restaurant, the staff was very accommodating and the food was fantastic.

After dinner, we settled in for the night and got ready for another full day ahead!

Wildlife & Scenery Excursion

Most undergraduate students at Bond do not have class on Fridays, and some are lucky enough to only have class three days a week. Of course I am here to learn, as well as stay on track with my GPA and degree requirements. However, I also want to travel and gain many amazing cultural and travel experiences! Today we were able to have our first real excursion in Gold Coast.

Morning

After a morning spent at the school club fair signing up for activities, we visited the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. This has been on my Australian bucket list since way before I arrived, mostly because we get to pet kangaroos and hold koalas! We spent a few hours working our way through the exhibits, petting kangaroos, watching a bird show, taking a safari train ride, and holding a koala. America is definitely different than Australia when it comes to places like this. There was very low-key security (basically friendly sanctuary employees/guides), and you could walk in and out of many different open exhibits. These included animals like kangaroos, emus, lots of birds, and wallabies. We also saw koalas, wombats, echidnas, crocodiles, Tasmanian devils, and dingoes. Here is a video of a turtle pool:

The kangaroos were definitely my favorite, mostly because you could see them up close. They were very mellow and soft to pet, and it was fantastic. Considering kangaroos can be very dangerous in the wild, it was truthfully a little disheartening to see them so mellow in the reserve, but also an incredible experience to be among them so personally. The emus were in the same area, yet not quite as friendly. They tended to stay more away from people, but were still very interesting creatures to see.

Kangaroo exhibit area

Kangaroo with a joey in its pouch

Petting a kangaroo!

At the end of the sanctuary a few of us took pictures with a koala! Of course we had to fall for the tourist trap of paying for a picture, but holding a koala has been on my bucket list since literally forever, and it was something that had to be done (zero regrets). Her name was Rochelle and she was very well behaved, soft, and very photogenic. Definitely an experience I will remember.

Holding a koala!

The process…

Koala feeding

Afternoon

On the way back we decided to take a shuttle since we had about 10 people, and the driver offered to make a stop at Elephant Rock. It also was a breathtaking and well-worthwhile excursion. Essentially there’s this big rock on the beach, you walk up a short, steep set of rock stairs, and come out on a platform on the top overlooking the entire Currumbin Beach coast. It was quite windy, but a fantastic find.

The short climb up to Elephant Rock outlook

A view off the lower-level rock formation, facing the South side

180 view off Elephant Rock

Evening

Later that evening, we all took a bus to the Burleigh Beach area, about a 30-minute bus ride from campus. We had a calm get-together with friends on the beach, ate sushi, and shared our different adventures of the day. It was an incredibly relaxing evening, and our walk along the water at night was so peaceful. It was gorgeous to see the mountains and coastal landscape lighted up in such a picturesque way. We made our way back home after a day of making lifelong memories.

Nighttime view on Burleigh Beach, facing the South side

Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

Melbourne is a town 30 minutes north of my hometown in Florida. It’s also the coolest city in Australia. And pronounced funny: Mel-BIN not Mel-BORN. There are lots of airline deals in Australia and we were able to get $50 flights each way on Tiger Airlines. I have heard that Tiger Airlines is unreliable and some warned to avoid it completely. However, it was cheap and the flights were nonstop. In the three years I’ve been at Penn State (and the trips I took to visit my senior year of high school), I have experienced more cancelled and delayed flights thanks to the Philadelphia and State College airports than most people will experience in their life. Needless to say, Tiger didn’t scare me and all in all my flights went smoothly (minus a frightening landing on the runway in Sydney). I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my entire semester in Melbourne since it’s further south and therefore colder, but I’d highly recommend it for a visit… or the entire semester if you’d consider yourself a hipster.

Day 1: St. Kilda. We arrived in Melbourne at 1:30pm. By the time we were picked up by the shuttle bus to take us to our hostel and weaved in and out of the city traffic, it was already 3:30pm. We stayed at Hotel Discovery (though it’s a hostel, not hotel), which was clean, cheap, centrally located and not too rowdy. Once settled, we took the city tram ($4 each way) to St. Kilda where we saw a beautiful sunset. After walking along the boardwalk and finding some delicious fish and chips along the main road in St. Kilda, we down the pier to find a small penguin colony. The penguins were adorable and made the funniest noises. It’s very rare to have wild penguins in such a populated area, so they’re colony is closely monitored by a local organization. There is a day trip from Melbourne to Phillips Island, which advertises wild penguin sightings, but we were able to see penguins for free in St. Kilda… so neat!

Day 2: Street Art and Carlton United Brewers. Melbourne is famous for it’s street art. Some of the “art” is just your everyday graffiti, but if you find the right alley, you can stumble upon real creativity! One of my friends found a map of street art locations online and we used this as our guide. The map led us through some cute alleys that were lined with shops and boutiques – so trendy! We also took a stroll through Fitzroy Gardens. The gardens are a step above most city parks and reminded me of a garden I visited in San Francisco. After the gardens, we took a tram to the Carlton United Brewers factory. With a 2-for-1 coupon and a student discount, the factory tour only cost $10 a person. I love factories tours (especially ones with free tastings) so I had a lot of fun here, even though the factory operations had already shut down for the weekend. Carlton is one of the most common beers in Australia, but the CUB also makes other brews, including Fosters. Though most Americans would think Foster’s is super popular over here (after all, “Fosters is Australian for beer”), it’s actually not. After the tour, each guests was allowed to sample four beers out of a selection of ten, including two ciders. Even better was the opportunity to play dress up in a giant beer costume while standing behind the bar. Later on, we found some more street art and ate dinner at Trippy Taco in Fitzroy near Brunswick St. The $9 burritos were a steal for Mexican food in Australia and they were real tasty.

Day 3: Great Ocean Road. No trip to Melbourne is complete without a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. This is known as one of the most scenic drives in the world. The whole drive would take two days (to get to Adelaide), but the most popular route is from Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles. My friend Bone was feeling adventurous and decided that he wanted to drive the road himself. Since tours of the Great Ocean Road leave you stuck on a big bus with no control of your day and they cost about $100 a person, we obliged to let Bone drive. The drive is frightening and I felt like I might throw up a couple times, but when I did have my eyes open looking over the side of the windy cliff, it was beautiful. We set out about 8:30am from Melbourne and saw our last sight at about 4:45pm.

Our stops included:

Bells Beach – One of the best surf beaches in Australia. The ways were HUGE!
Split Point Lighthouse – This is a good alternative to the Otway Lighthouse if you don’t mind not climbing. The Otway Lighthouse is a pretty far detour and costs money to climb, but most tour groups go there.
Great Ocean Road Arch and Diggers Statue
Kennett River – There’s a campground and a small mini mart here. Just off the road you can see koalas up in the trees. It was unfortunately raining when we were here, but I did get to see a koala chowing down on some eucalyptus and then go hopping through the tree!

Apollo Bay – This is the last town before the 12 Apostles so stop here if you’re hungry!
Gibson Steps
12 Apostles – The main attraction along the Great Ocean Road. There were a million people here and it was so windy everyone was blowing around, but the 12 Apostles really are an impressive sight!

Loch Arch and Gorge – Not a far walk from the car park so worth the stop. You can even walk down to the water here.
The Arch
London Bridge – It was so rainy I didn’t get out of the car here.
The Grotto – The Arch, London Bridge, and the Grotto are all very close to each other once you’ve past the 12 Apostles. Not all the tour groups stop at these places.
Timboon – This is a random small town on the road back east to Melbourne. We had some great pizza at the only open food shop there. From here it was an hour and 40-minute drive back to Melbourne along dark forest roads and highway.

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Semester Break in Cairns

The top two semester break destinations for American students studying in Eastern Australia tends to be Cairns or New Zealand. Cairns, home to the Great Barrier Reef, is located in northern Queensland and is a 3-hour flight from Sydney. While I’m sure New Zealand is beautiful and just as amazing as everyone says it, I was hoping to jam in as many uniquely Australian adventures as I could into my semester so Cairns was my destination of choice. Cairns is extremely popular for its endless amount of activities: snorkeling, rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, and rainforest trekking, to name a few. I’d say it’s hard to beat just how “Australian” my trip was, and though I’d have a lot of recommendations for someone making a trip to the area (feel free to contact me if you’re reading this and headed to Cairns!), overall I definitely had a memorable and successful trip.

Day 1: The Lagoon. Cairns does not have a beach, so the city created “The Lagoon” located on The Esplanade (boardwalk) that is a large, shallow pool with a small stretch of makeshift beach and lots of picnic areas. The weather in Cairns was a hot and sunny 85 degrees, perfect pool and sun-baking weather. We also strolled around the shops of Cairns (mostly tourist gift shops) before returning to our hostel for a BBQ dinner.

Day 2: The Reef. I could not have asked for a more perfect day for snorkeling. The trip out to the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns takes about 2 hours and the sea was completely flat. One day later and our trip would have been bumpy seas and partly cloudy skies, factors that would have changed the experience entirely. I could have spent all day lying out on the front of our big catamaran. We were on the Passions of Paradise boat. There are a million different reef tour operators in Cairns, some of which have HUGE boats with elevator lifts that drop you straight into the water (no jumping in or climbing up a ladder required), but this just seemed a little too commercialized for my taste. The first reef we snorkelled was actually surrounding a sandbar that doubled as a bird sanctuary. I was extremely impressed with the health of the reef here and I loved getting to see new reef creatures (like the guitarfish pictured below) as well as some of my Florida Keys favorites like the parrot fish. The second reef we visited was not near as healthy and a little bit deeper. As an ocean lover and lifelong snorkeler, I was disappointed with the lack of care shown by the tour operators for the reef – not once did they tell people to not stand on the reef or inform them of the threats currently jeopardizing the existence of coral reefs. However, with the amount of visitors the Great Barrier Reef sees every year, I suppose the damage to the reefs could be even greater.

Day 3: Driving on the Left & Platypus Spotting. Since Cairns does not have any beaches, my friends and I rented a car to take us to the beaches north of Cairns. You could also take a $5 bus, but I wanted the experience of driving on the “wrong” side of the road, as well as the freedom to travel between beaches. We chose to go to Palm Cove and Trinity Beach, both of which were beautiful and lined with Palm Trees. I’d recommend Palm Cove for anyone taking the bus up to the beaches, but if you’re renting a car, go a little further up the Captain Cook Highway and explore some of the beaches right of the road that have amazing views. They aren’t lifeguarded or protected from jellyfish, so don’t go to these if you want to swim! After spending time at the beaches, we drove an hour to Yungaburra, a tiny town known for its platypuses. At dusk and dawn, you can sometimes see them swimming in the creek. We stopped in the visitor’s center before it closed at 5 to find out where was the best place for a sighting. We then spent an hour sitting in silence, not moving, slightly freezing, waiting to see an elusive platypus. Thankfully, we finally saw one (they’re SO small!) swimming in the creek. Spotting a platypus is not too common, so we definitely got lucky. The drive home was through the windiest and darkest roads I’ve ever driven (definitely frightening when you’re on the wrong side of the road) but halfway home we pulled over to look at the stars and it was truly incredible. Never have I seen so many stars in the sky – you could even see the Milky Way! While renting a car and going to Yungaburra aren’t two things you need to do in Cairns, they were two of the highlights of my trip.

Day 4: Go Wild! Tour. The Go Wild! jungle tour can be done as a day tour or overnight tour. If you’re interested in snorkeling in Port Douglas (less visited than the reefs off Cairns), horseback riding, or zip lining, look into the overnight tours! This day felt very “Australian” as we started off at the Wildlife Habitat where I got to HOLD A KOALA. It was so soft and cuddly, but boy did it have sharp claws! Koala “cuddling” is only legal in Queensland and will set you back about $16, but it was one of my top 3 Australian experiences. Our bus drove us along the beautiful and scenic Captain Cook Highway (known as one of the best drives in Australia) to the Daintree River. Here we took a river cruise to spot some wild crocodiles. The river reminded me of home in Florida with so many mangroves. Afterwards, we took a stroll through the Daintree Rainforest to see big spiders and poisonous plants, all while trying to avoid getting drenched. The last stop before our drive back to Cairns was Cape Tribulation where Cook first landed in Australia. It was too rainy and cloudy for sun baking which was quite a bummer.

Day 5/6: Just Chillen. The last two days we were in Cairns, we wandered around the town some more, spent what little sunshine time there was at the Lagoon, and ate the best fajitas any of us had ever tasted. A restaurant called Cactus Jacks has a $20 fajita and margarita deal on Thursday nights and if you’re reading this and ever find yourself in Cairns on a Thursday, you MUST go. The fajitas were cooked with a little bit of BBQ sauce which made them so amazingly delicious. It would have been great to add in another day trip or some fun activity, but with the not so great weather, I don’t think rafting/bungee jumping/more snorkelling would have been as enjoyable.

Crocodiles, platypus, and koalas… snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef… getting rained on in a rainforest… driving on the left side of the road… sunbaking… Could I have had a more “Aussie” Easter Break experience??

A few recommendations:

Njoy is a fine hostel but a little far away from town and with a very unreliable shuttle bus.
Gilligan’s is the most popular hostel in the area and a non stop party… seriously people who stay there said the place was never quiet. If you’re looking for no sleep and lots of fun, it’s probably the place for you.
Don’t be afraid to wait until you’re in Cairns to book trips – you aren’t going to get amazing last minute deals, but there are a million travel agencies in town with unending tour options.
Ask your hostel where the cheapest traveler meals are – it’s possible to have dinner for $5!
Look into Port Douglas and other reef towns – many places have shuttles from the airport.
Cactus Jack’s on for Thursday night fajitas!!
Rent a high quality digital camera in town for $40 (includes all your pictures put on a DVD) instead of buying a $20 disposable camera that only let’s you take 20 pictures and then costs $15 to get developed (and they’re crappy pictures!!)

Location: Cairns, Australia

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