Philip Island and Wilsons Promontory National Park

From the Great Ocean Road, we wanted to go to Philip Island. To save some time, we skipped the last three places that are part of the Great Ocean Road. According to the travel guide, they wouldn't have offered anything interesting to our taste anyway... Instead, we treated ourselves to the busy drive to the city center of Melbourne, where we enlarged our travel group. From now on, the three of us - including our daughter studying in Melbourne - went directly out of Melbourne and headed to Philip Island as quickly as possible. We had tickets for the Penguin Parade in the evening. From grandstands, you can observe the evening landing of the little penguins, who wash up on the beach, gather in large groups, and then waddle together to their nests, where the hungry offspring is already waiting. A long wooden walkway leads to the grandstands, from which you can see the penguins up close, especially after the 'parade'.

The next morning, we headed to Wilsons Promontory National Park (short: Wilsons Prom), where we knew there should be wombats. Since we had never seen them in the wild before, that was an absolute must for us... We did some very nice hikes in the park with great views of the coast and mountains, and were finally rewarded with a wombat. This was followed by wombat No. 2 to 9, and there were also wallabies, kangaroos, and emus, so we were super pleased.