The second last day of adventures for this holiday. Today was another special day for the family, with another birthday adventure – this time it was for Daniel’s 11th birthday (which was back on day 79).
After a bit of a play down the road at a park to get rid of a bit of energy (and for me to enjoy a coffee), we headed off to the beautiful Dolphin Marine Conservation Park. Initially when you arrive, it does feel like quite a small park – but to be honest, that actually only added to the beauty of the day for us. The keepers and staff are all wonderful and incredibly friendly, and because the park is small, you keep running into them throughout the day.
Not long into the morning, it was time for our Penguin Encounter – Daniel’s birthday present! Before our encounter, there was actually a short talk about the penguins, which was a really wonderful introduction to the Little Blue Penguins that are here at the park, and that are native to Australia (these are the same species of penguin we saw during the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island). After the talk, we then had our chance to have some one-on-one time with the keeper and our beautiful penguin friends. She talked us through how we were going to be feeding them, and then we each got to have a go at dropping a little sardine into their mouths. They were all so hungry and pushy! It was an amazing experience, and one that we all absolutely loved. Just like the other experiences, we’re so thankful for the effort that the keeper, Sarah, put into making Daniel feel special given it was his birthday present. We also got to put a bunch of nesting material into the enclosure, which the penguins are using at the moment to try and build up their nests.
They have keeper talks every half hour on different animals that go for 15 minutes, which really worked out perfectly for the size of the park – it wasn’t a struggle to see everything and get to each talk. One of the sea lions was in one of the grassed areas of the park doing a bit of painting, which was brilliant! We also learnt about their Sea Turtle Hospital area and heard about how they’re helping to rehabilitate turtles who are brought in unwell, and then about the Park’s overall operations and the welfare of the animals kept at the park. They are very proud of their ZAA accreditation, which is an independent organisation that regularly checks on several areas of how the animals are kept. Other talks we enjoyed were on the enrichment of all the animals (ie, how they help the animals continue to grow and learn by using other objects), and also about how they train their animals (with a focus on the dolphins).
One of the highlights of the day was the Dolphin Dreamtime and Sea Lion presentation. They integrate a really wonderful dreamtime story about dolphins from the Gumbaynggirr people into the show, including the dolphins partly acting it out! We then of course got to see these amazing creatures doing some spectacular things in the water as well. One of their sea lions also came out for a visit and they talked us through the training they do with them to enable them to do health checks on them – things like opening their mouths for checks, and also laying flat so their skin can be checked all over.
We also got a chance to feed some of the fish they have in their Solitary Reefs display – huge Snapper, Eastern Fiddler Ray and a Crested Horn Shark. We each got to use tongs to hold out a few prawns or sardines for the fish to take from us. The snapper in particular would sneak up on you to take the food, and on my turn he definitely made me jump!
They close up at 2pm, but we really felt like we saw everything, and for a perfect amount of time too. As well as seeing some amazing marine life, it was a really wonderful education experience. And Daniel thoroughly enjoyed the day as well, which is important as well!
On the way home, we stopped in at the Clog Barn for a quick visit. It was only open another hour or so from when we got there, but that was enough time to just see the end of one of the clog making presentations, and then explore the beautiful model village out the back as well. Before they closed, we managed to squeeze in a couple of serves of poffertjes, which made for a delicious afternoon tea.
This evening, we’ve just arrived home from one last fish & chips for the holiday. We headed down to the Coffs Harbour jetty & breakwall area to where the Fishermans’ Co-op is. They close up at 5pm, so it was an early dinner. We ordered a few bits of some local snapper, and the kids had some whiting and calamari, and we sat at one of the benches overlooking the beach as the sun set. It made for a really beautiful evening together for one of the last nights of the holiday.
Only one more day of adventures, and then one more day of travel to go!
