Melbourne Day 2 - Healesville Sanctuary

On Sunday the 13th of October, I decided to introduce Robin and Luke to the weird and wonderful wildlife of Australia by visiting the Healesville Sanctuary, which specialises in just Australian wildlife.

Healesville Sanctuary is 110 kilometers away from where we are staying so is a good hour and a half drive. We were up and off just before 8am.

The first half of the drive was along straight Australian highways and during the second half the roads become more varied with curves and required a range of speeds. We arrived around 9-30 and head on in.

Healesville Sanctuary is a great place for kids and there were kids everywhere, the only other people I saw were those with large high powered cameras, though I did think is strange to be using a high powered camera in a sanctuary opposed to out in the wild.

First up we stopped and worked out which of the many activities Healesville Sanctuary has which we wanted to attend to get our day in order and make sure we don’t miss anything.

We then headed out first to ‘kangaroo country’ where we saw a number of red kangaroos just sitting around. But then as we were leaving the area several of the kangaroo’s got up and starting hopping around which was great for everyone to witness.

We then headed to up this raised walkway which went through ‘koala forest’, and there were koala’s everywhere at our height which was clever and the koala’s were larger than I thought they would be. And on the odd occasion when one did move, the koala’s moved quicker than I thought they would. The Echidnas’ were a surprise to me, a small strange anteater who is also one of only two egg laying mammals on the planet, and in addition whose rear feet face backwards, so they can dig holes to escape quickly and does look weird.

We then headed around the main track and saw an amazing treat, an actual lyrebird matting dance – so amazing and lucky to see the male bird doing such an elaborate dance to which the female promptly watched and then ignored him as she walked off in another direction.

It was then a visit to the reptile’s area so the boys can see snakes for the first time; to be honest they didn’t seem that excited by them.

Next we headed off to the ‘Tales of Platypus Creek’ display, this was a great 30 minute show with a platypus interacting with a keeper with her telling us unusual amazing platypus facts, such as they are the second egg laying mammal and they are just look so weird and cool to watch in action.

Afterward we headed to the absolutely amazing “Sprits of the Sky” feature show, where you spend half an hour with a range of Australian birds zooming in and around the audience including flying within inches right above my head several times.

The birds included large parrots through to the wedge-tailed eagle with a wing span of over 2 meters among other birds such the Black-breasted Buzzard. I remember seeing a similar show in Utah at the Hogle Zoo with my American Cousin Gill and her kids back in 2012 and really enjoyed it there as well, and the Australian version was just as cool but with different local birds.

We then headed out to eat our picnic lunch, which we did except for Luke who was super excited about a large yellow frog in the kids play area that he just didn’t want to get off.

The afternoon was spent walking around the rest of Healesville Sanctuary seeing more Australian wildlife such as kookaburra’s, the Australian Pelican which you could get right up to and dingoes before we headed back in to watch the “Sprits of the Sky” again. This time round several of the birds didn’t want to come out and the keepers say that is fine as the birds decide if they want to come out or not – so this show was only half the length of the morning show.

Our final visit was to the wetlands where there were royal spoonbills, and other birds,

Then of course a visit to the gift shop before jumping in the car for the long trip back to Melbourne.

This has been a great first day in Australia, and the family now has a good understanding on how strange, bizarre and cool the Australian wildlife can be.