Australia Day 11: Fauna & Flora around Port Phillip Bay

​Moonlit Sanctuary on Morningstar Peninsula was the highlight of another wonderful day in the Melbourne area. 

The focus of this sanctuary is the preservation of endangered species, protecting and propagation, where possible. While many birds and animals were in cages or penned enclosures, there were many more roaming freely on the grounds. It was an opportunity to see so many creatures that we had learned about but would not have a chance to see in the wild.

Birds - a big success story from the park was the breeding program for the Orange-bellied parrot .  The bird was down to only 30 individuals in the wild, but they the breeding program, the species has been reintroduced in some areas.  They had about 10 and they were lovely.

We also saw in Koalas

This is the darling, but shy, quokka

This was a bandicoot being trained to participate in shows for tourists

The real highlight was feeding the wallabies.

red kangaroo

We also saw dingoes, tawny frogmouths, koalas, several kinds of cockatoos, emus, wedge-tailed eagles, a bunch of cool snakes, frogs and lizards, and lots more.

Another interesting place was the Royal Botanical Gardens of Melbourne. The gardens were created in an abandoned sandstone mine with a focus on the recreation of different habitats in Australia with only indigenous plants. We had a guided journey on a tram around the property to see the arid red center of the country, medicinal plants, and ancient Gondwanaland plants that have grown here for millions of years. There was also a lot of interesting architecture.

Representation of the “red center” of Australia

These columns represented the different indigenous groups in the local area.

Upside down trees

These trees are 400-600 years old!

We had lunch at the Botanical gardens that featured indigenous food (bush tukka) that included finger lime pearls, lemon Myrtle tea and kangaroo sausages.

The last stop of the day was Brighton Beach on Port Phillips Bay.  The beach is known for the large collection of bathing boxes - small brightly covered buildings about the size of a small one car garage that are used for changing clothes. These boxes cost enormous sums of money, not surprising, the beach road is lined with multi million dollar homes.

Dinner included the option of roast kangaroo. It looked and tasted a lot like beef, but with less fat.

Tomorrow we have an early start, so keeping the narrative short today.