Phillip Island Wildlife Park

Captain Kangaroo

Making our way west from Sydney toward Melbourne, we decided to head a little off route to visit Phillip Island just southeast of Melbourne. Our trusty guidebook highlighted a couple of interesting wildlife opportunities – one in particular where you could interact with and feed kangaroos, wallabies and emus. The brochures highlight the Penguin Parade, the Koala Conservation Centre and opportunities to see Australian Fur Seals just off the coast. Since we’d seen a similar parade of penguins in Oamuru and fur seals in NZ, we were interested in seeing koalas and roos.

anything for me
anything for me
attack of the emu
attack of the emu
dave feeding another cute kangaroo
dave feeding another cute kangaroo
begging bird
begging bird
black swan
black swan
anything left in the bag
anything left in the bag
aren't i cute
aren't i cute
black swan
black swan
australian king parrot i think
australian king parrot i think
curious emu
curious emu
curious kangaroo
curious kangaroo
curious red kangaroos
curious red kangaroos

We visited the Phillip Island Wildlife Park – despite the information centre staff providing us with misinformation and trying to steer us toward the Koala Centre. (We later learned that there is some serious kick back action happening with the other places.) It turned out to be a definite highlight of our Aussie experience so far! 

We were greeted by clever and very cute little wallabies that know you receive a free bag of food with your admission.  We saw koalas munching on eucalyptus leaves, dingoes salivating at any animal that walked past, and a pacing Tasmanian Devil (who later settled down for a nice nap).  Sorry kids they don’t look like the cartoon character, but they are certainly cute – in funny looking way.  We saw lots of interesting and crazy birds of prey and were followed around by a cult of emus who just knew we had some food in our pockets. 

dave feeding cute kangaroo
dave feeding cute kangaroo
dave feeding the wallabie
dave feeding the wallabie
dave feeding the kangaroo
dave feeding the kangaroo
dingoe
dingoe
echidna
echidna
emu
emu
feed me
feed me
flying fox eating peaches
flying fox eating peaches
friendly kangaroos
friendly kangaroos
i've seen better
i've seen better
lee anne feeding mama with baby
lee anne feeding mama with baby
hungry bird
hungry bird

The most amazing part was walking down into the scrub where the kangaroos roam.  It was approaching mid-day and pretty hot, so there was not a lot of activity.  We spotted one checking us out.  It seemed much more cautious than the wallabies that hop over to you without hesitation.  The kangaroo in question scratched itself, made a couple of small, very slow steps in our direction, then Hop! Hop! Hop!  There it was right in front of us.  Pretty crazy!  It ate gently from our hands as we stared in awe.  After a while others perked up and came over to investigate.  It was at times a little intimidating as they move pretty quickly and naturally will be territorial about food, but it was also quite awesome!

hungry red kangaroos
hungry red kangaroos
injured very large eagle
injured very large eagle
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo feeding
kangaroo siesta
kangaroo siesta
mama with baby kanga
mama with baby kanga
monitor lizard
monitor lizard
monitor lizard
monitor lizard
monitor lizard
monitor lizard
persistent gang of emus
persistent gang of emus
munching koala
munching koala
please mr
please mr
red-kangaroo
red-kangaroo
red kangaroo with baby kanga on board
red kangaroo with baby kanga on board
salvating dingoe
salvating dingoe
sleepy koala
sleepy koala
so cute
so cute
spotted tail quoll
spotted tail quoll
tasmanian devil
tasmanian devil
tasmanian devil
tasmanian devil
wallabie
wallabie
very cute koala
very cute koala
wallabie feeding
wallabie feeding
wallabies are cute too
wallabies are cute too