We rented a car and took a drive to the northeast of Melbourne, into the Yarra Valley where we’d spend a few hours at the Healesville Sanctuary. Our plan after that was to drive south through the Dandenong Ranges National Park to get to Phillip Island where at sundown we’d see the Little Penguins come ashore.
Healesville Sanctuary is about an hour to the northeast of Melbourne and was quite something. It’s part of the Melbourne Zoo and is focused on conservation. What was surprising was how interactive a place it was. You’re actually walking among many of the animals and birds and can get quite close to them.
We arrived just in time to see a bird learning event where two park rangers showed off interesting Australian birds. The birds were somehow trained to fly out over the crowd and return to their perch. Take a look:
From there we moved on to see an emu up close and personal.
From there we went to see the lyrebird. The lyrebird is known for it’s uncanny ability to mimic sounds, including artificial sounds like cameras snapping. The bird is beautiful!
Here’s a video of the lyrebird that we took.
After the lyrebird we were off to see parrots. They have huge aviaries in the Sanctuary that allow you to walk in and among the birds. So you’re right there with them.
More parrots.
I don’t recal what this bird was called, but it was gorgeous!
After that we saw some fruits bats just hanging around. To be clear if they had wanted to buzz our heads they could have done so – there was nothing between them and us. Fortunatey they were quite busy with a fruit bat kerfuffle in the aviary.
On to some ground animals. First up was the wallabees.
Then the kangaroos lying around in the afternoon sun.
And then finally our favorite — the koala. We were able to book a semi-private up-close visit with a koala with one of the park rangers. It was such a sweet experience. There were two koalas reserved for these experiences and one was awake and the other asleep. We were able to get close to the one that was asleep. So incredibly cute.
This is a must see if you ever get to Melbourne. Healesville Sanctuary, remember it!
