Melbourne to Port Fairy

We arrived in Melbourne from Christchurch around 7pm and went to a local pub for dinner.

In the morning we caught the local free tram to the Queen Victoria Market.

The market is made up of 2 huge buildings/warehouses. The first building is just seafood and meats of every kind. The next building was massive and was full of fruits, vegetables, material, electronics, fishing equipment, clothes and anything else you could think of.

After that we caught the tram back to near our hotel and then headed to the Queen Victoria Gardens which included the Shrine of Remembrance and the Royal Botanical Gardens. So much to see and a lot of walking on a rainy day. It was a +20,000 step day.

On Sunday we went on a tour to the Koala & Animal Wildlife Park and to the Philip Island Woolamai Beach for the Parade of Penguins.
We toured the Koala sanctuary first and saw many Koala’s both sleeping and awake. The parks is amazing as it provides a safe place for Koala’s to thrive.

We saw tons of Wallabies in the grasses before reaching the penguin site.
Then we were off to the Penguin Parade. The adult little blue penguins return to land and their burrows at dusk.

They seem to come out in small groups all over the beach. We were told between 700-1000 per night is the average. It was fun to watch the babies come out of their underground nests, scurry around and wait for their parent(s) to return with food. It wa a long day and we did not get back to our hotel until 12 midnight.

February 17 , we started our trip to Adelaide along the Great Coastal Road. It was a sunny day so the views were spectacular.

Along the way we had heard of a road to take to view Koalas and Kangaroos in the wild. We did a short hike and another group of tourists somehow spotted a lone Koala asleep at the top of a distant tree.
We ended our day at a 2 bedroom motel at Apollo Bay

Feb 18 was cloudy and chilly and was the day we saw lots of beaches and sand and limestone creations on the beach and surrounding cliffs, etc. Some of these included, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, London Arch, the Twelve Apostles, The Bay of Martyrs and The Grotto.

On one of the hikes we saw an Echidna (kind of like a large hedgehog) in the wild.

Tonight we are in Port Fairy at the Seacombe House Motor Inn. It is a lovely older property.