Sara Teear from the AUIP office has recently returned from a holiday with her husband in Melbourne, Australia, she writes:

Melbourne Skyline and Princes Bridge

When our friends invited us to their wedding in Melbourne we immediately said that we would attend and then got stuck into planning our trip! During the week we visited numerous Melbourne icons, such as Federation Square, Lygon Street for pizza lunch, Queen Victoria Market, the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), St Kilda beach and Chapel Street for some essential retail therapy. We were also lucky to be able to take a trip down to Phillip Island. Phillip Island is home to the International Motorcycle Grand Prix, World Championship Superbikes and Australian Touring Car Championships. It is also a place of natural beauty with sandy beaches and unique wildlife experiences, including the famous penguin parade. On the way to Phillip Island we stopped at Maru Wildlife Park. Here we were able to interact with numerous native animals and learn about them from the informative keepers. The animals we saw included three species of kangaroo, two species of wallaby, wombats, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, emus, parrots, native Australian birds, a pony, donkey, alpaca, sheep, goat and turtles.

To the right is a photo of Sara patting a koala.

Are you going on one of the AUIP Australia programs in 2012? How about extending your trip and visiting the vibrant and diverse city of Melbourne? Sara would highly recommend it!