Philip Island

Went to Philip Island on Sunday! Walked along the beach and up a path to see some absolutely beautiful scenery. REALLY REALLY GORGEOUS. There's something incredibly peaceful and calming about standing on a cliff and looking at the ocean with the sound of waves crashing. But then the torrential downpour and wind started. I've never had rain hurt so much before lol . OW MY EYEBALLS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE PELTED WITH RAINDROPS. Eventually made it back to the van alive and soaked. I forgot how uncomfortable wet jeans are...

Then drove to the Koala Sanctuary. ARRAHHH they are so cute! They're like furry, grumpy little Yodas who can sleep anywhere! Like one butt cheek wedged between two wispy thin branches is enough. One or two moved though and wowed us with their branch-leaping skills; we were very much in awe considering we pretty much didn't expect them to move, ever. I'm ashamed of this, but for one split second I thought, were koalas really meant to exist for a long time (as in, not die out)? I thought this b/c our guide told us that parts of the trees had to be wrapped with plastic tubing so the koalas couldn't access certain parts of the tree and accidentally eat it to death. I mean, wouldn't they just naturally kill their dwindling food source left and right!? Of course, I then remembered that before humans, they most likely had enough trees to go around... OOPS.

Then! We got to feed wallabies and kangaroos. THEY ARE ADORABLE. I WILL HAVE PICTURES SOON, HOPEFULLY. The wallabies look like kangaroos but darker and much smaller. They've been well conditioned by now in that once they see you have a paper bag, they know you're there to feed them. They inch closer and closer until you finally extend your feed-filled hand--at which point they grab onto your fingers with their little claws and hold on tight lest you try to pull your hand away before they're done. You could pet them so long as you didn't touch their faces. It kind of reminded me of girls trying to avoid being kissed on the dance floor: *weave, kiss dodge, head bob.* The kangaroos were a lot more...insistent. aggressive. GREEDY. They do that big dog move where they put their front paws on you and leaaaaaan and breathe stank ass air into your face until you give them what they want. You had to resist. or at least feed strategically! A couple of the kangaroos had joeys in their pouches. If you wanted to feed the joeys, then you had to get a sneaky partner to feed/distract the mother so you could get the food near her kid.

Bad: we saw some black swans; *backs away* THEY ARE DEVIL BIRDS, DEAR GOD. Absolutely vicious things that attack you and anything else that moves...

Fairy penguins! They are absolutely tinyyy! They're about a foot tall maybe, probably less. You know toddlers/babies waddle around and tend to just barrel forward without looking out for potential obstacles? They just want to get to THAT DESTINATION no matter what as fast as possible. Fairy penguins are like the toddlers of birds. They run head lowered a little, like they're going to tip over any second BUT THEY HAVE TO KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING. and when they do eventually trip over something (because you know it is inevitable), they just sh-sh-sh-shake it off. I kind of wanted to pick them up and put 'em in my purse. and run for it.

If I don't make it back to the States, it's probably because I've been arrested for penguin snatching.