{"id":21846,"date":"2016-06-20T06:35:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T22:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=21846"},"modified":"2017-02-25T00:08:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T16:08:16","slug":"melbourne-day-7-healesville-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2016\/06\/20\/melbourne-day-7-healesville-sanctuary\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne – Day 7 – Healesville Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery<\/strong> was just a couple of minutes drive from the Fergussion Winery & Restaurant, and we stopped here for a short 25 minutes before continuing on.\u00a0 As is fashionable in many Chocolateries these days, the establishment goes with open-concept – large glass windows allow visitors to get a close look at how the various chocolate types are made. Most of the building is used by the retail shop that sells a large variety of chocolate food items and other memorabilia, and the opposing end a busy cafe. There are also large bowls of free dark, white and normal chocolates for visitors to sample at the entrance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The nicest thing about the Chcolaterie though is the large lawn that’s at the front of it, permitting visitors an obstructed view of many kilometers of farmland, groves, wineries, roads to the distant hills beyond.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Large
Large glass window into the chocolate kitchen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chocolate
Chocolate fans will be delighted at the shop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"In
In the spirit of Euro 2016 happening right this week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Healesville Sanctuary<\/strong> is a further 20 minutes drive away, and we got to the place at about 1415hrs, staying for about 2 hours. We both had very mixed feelings of the place – here are my comments about it:<\/p>\n

The Sanctuary has an Australian bushland setting and comprises 200 animal varieties, and the compound is fairly large for the relatively small number of animals it homes. That in itself poses immediate problems; basically, for visitors who’re used to zoos with high enclosure densities or things to see – e.g. everywhere you turn, there’s something fascinating that’ll catch the eye – Healesville Sanctuary is nothing like this. Enclosures are not typically beside each other.<\/p>\n

I appreciate the bushland theme as well, but a lot of times, I felt that more care to the care of this natural environment for the park was needed. Flora seemed to had been permitted to grow freely, and some of the enclosures looked quite run-down (especially one of the koala ones).<\/p>\n

The admission tickets for the park was included as part of our day tour package, but a look at the ticketing information left us a little startled on our way out. It was a hefty AUD31.60 per adult – same as Melbourne Zoo – but there just is far less to see.<\/p>\n

The last issue we had with the Sanctuary is that the enclosures were almost all non-interactive. The kangaroos – which Hannah was really looking forward to feeding again – were in a more or less open enclosure, but our guide actually warned us not to go near them. Quite unlike Ballarat Wildlife Park<\/strong> where the ‘Roos roam free, were all very tame and visitors were encouraged to feed and touch them.<\/p>\n

As for the good bits: we were in-time for the 1430hrs bird show, and that at least didn’t disappoint, with several large birds swooping very low to fly just over visitors, and each time they circled for another pass, visitors were wowed. The aviary also has a large number of small but colorful native birds to the country, and despite the slowly darkening light, I managed to get a number of pretty decent shots of the birds perched on branches. The park is also supported by a large number of friendly volunteer guides who’d bring visitors around the place and share insights at each enclosure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In summary; we both consider the Ballarat Wildlife Park<\/a> visit a far more memorable and personable experience, smaller it was and hosting fewer animal species. If you’ve been to there already and are considering Healesville Sanctuary specifically for kids also , then we think the Sanctuary can be skipped. If you’re interested in birds though and aren’t with easily bored kids, then the place is still about alright after you’ve adjusted expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery was just a couple of minutes drive from the Fergussion Winery & Restaurant, and we stopped here for a short 25 minutes before continuing on.\u00a0 As is fashionable in many Chocolateries these days, the<\/p>\n

Read More Melbourne – Day 7 – Healesville Sanctuary<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[573,575,567,568,566],"class_list":["post-21846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-fujifilm-x70","tag-melbourne-2016","tag-12-40mm","tag-40-150mm","tag-e-m1","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/blog-2016-melbourne-day7-OMEC1589-healesville-sanctuary.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}