Middle Island Tour...

Middle Island...

Yesterday we made it to the Wonderful Middle Island Tour. This tour had been booked out all through the school holidays and we were finally able to make it there yesterday.
This tour was Very informative and the tour guide was brilliant. We all thoroughly enjoyed the tour.
A group of us walked with the tour guide from the information centre to stingray bay and middle island across the road.

Middle Island...

We walked along beautiful stingray bay, and the wonderful dog handler (who was also in the film Oddball) walked the two maremma dogs over to meet us.

This is our wonderful tour guide (the lady with the cap on in the middle of the group).

Walking through the shallow water to middle Island (which is known as Penguin Island to the locals).

We had the opportunity to take photos with the beautiful maremma dogs. I think the dogs were only interested in getting back to protecting the penguins from the foxes.

 We then walked up the stairs and along the boardwalk. We all tried to spot some beautiful penguins..It is all about them and their well being after all! These maremma dogs spend most of their time on the boardwalk protecting the penguins from fox attacks.

Some views from Middle Island boardwalk and Middle Island. On the Island there were man made burrows/houses and Penguin made burrows.
We did see two penguins, but you can't see them very well in the pics. They were shy and hiding a little.

The two maremma dogs in their enclosure. This is where they eat and drink, but apparently rarely ever lay or sleep.
We were towards the back of the group and as always, Shane made friends with the dog handler, bonus to us because usually you are not allowed to pat or have contact with the dogs, however the awesome dog handler allowed our girls to give the dogs a good pat, Yay!

See this isalnd, this isalnd is the actual island that features in the Awesome film Oddball, not middle island. 

Middle Island...

Walking back to the information center. Good Bye Middle Island!
What a great tour and a great project. It is so amazing that a farmer one day worked out that these maremma dogs could protect the penguins from the foxes. If it wasn't for these dogs and this project, the penguins would have been wiped out of this area years ago...Amazing!

Info about the penguins and the Maremma project...

My...

...GORGEOUS...

...Family xoxoxox

Thanks for checking out our pics :-)

I Hope you have a GREAT night and Take Care,
Dimi

Tower Hil Wildlife Reserve...

We had a busy week exploring Warrnambool and the surrounding areas.

Last Sunday, the Pastor at Liber8 church in Warrnambool told Shane about Tower hill, so we took his advice and checked it out. Tower Hill is just outside of Warrnambool.

Tower Hill is an enormous inactive volcano and it is surrounded by a lake and full of beautiful wildlife. You can walk around the rim of the volcanic crater (which we did), it is a spectacular place to visit. There are 4 different trails, we did one of them and we will be going back to do the rest of them, have a picnic/bbq, and spend the day there sometime this week.

When we first arrived to the car park area, we were greeted with quite a few emus just walking around the car park and surrounding bush. It was beautiful a sight.

The views of the drive down...

Give Way to the Emu...

Can you spot the Koala?

The Different Trails...We Love walking along different Trails...

On this part of the sign you are advised to make yourself appear big if an emu runs towards you. We seen a few people making themselves appear big by putting one of their arms up above their head for the fun of it. The emus don't like this so they run the other way.

Our Journey to the last volcano begins. This 1 hour walk was the most difficult of all the walks. We walked up many steep hills, and seen quite a bit of wildlife along the way. We spotted a snake slither from the side of the path into the bush, we saw a tiny lizard, a couple more emus in the bush and a whole lot of bird life. It was a beautiful walk.

Keep going Girls...You can Doooo Itttt!

Mr. Spunk is his name...

View of the inside of the volcano...

What a sight...

One of the many steep Hills we walked up...

What a Fanatastic time we had at Tower Hill. The walk was a little challenging (we like a bit of a challenging walk), great scenery, beautiful wildlife and a chance to take a heap of photos, Wonderful!

I hope you enjoyed our pics.

Have a GREAT day and Take Care,

Dimi xoxox