June 7th - Phillip Island

We headed out to Phillip Island on a rather chilly day. It was overcast with a little rain but the drive was rather uneventful.

We purchased a pass that will allow us to see the Penguin Parade as well as two other parks in the area. There is also a free Visitor's Center on the island so that was our first stop. We went with the intention of only seeing the Visitor Center and penguins on this first trip. We will have six months to visit the other parks.

So, off to the Visitor's Center. It was rather nice. It had a large cafe so everyone could get their coffee. There was a little game room and a children's area. The main attraction was the seals. There was a boardwalk where you could go look at the seals. However, the seals were very, very far away. I don't know that we actually saw anything. We tried taking pictures but it looks like we got some rocks. Inside there were cameras that we could pay to use. Since we bought the big pass we were able to use it for 5 minutes for free. It just gave us control of a camera that was on the island. Pretty neat.

Next off to the Penguin Parade. We weren't allowed to take pictures because the flash hurts the eyes of the penguins. So we sat in stadium type seating and waited until the sun went down. At least we went in winter so we didn't have to wait until 10:00 for the sun to go down! Once the sun was gone we started seeing the penguins. The seating area did have this huge spotlights so we were able to see everything (I do wonder if that was harmful for the penguins' eyes.

Anyway, the penguins go out into the water to feed for about a week. When it is time to come back home, they come back in groups. So a small group of about 15 penguins would walk up the beach, past the seating area and into their burrows. These penguins are called little penguins and are only about a foot tall. So they get very nervous about their walk up the beach. The group close to us would get mostly out of the water, someone would get spooked and they they would all turn around and go running back into the water. It was really funny to watch. They slowly ventured a little further each time but it took them about 25 minutes to run across the little strip of land. We did get to watch a couple more groups come across. Penguins are pretty cute.

After we watched them we walked back up this long board walk that was basically built over the penguins' burrows. So we were able to observe the penguins going back home. All the penguins came out of their homes to greet those coming back. It really did look like a little party.

We probably left about 6:00 so we headed back towards Coburg and grabbed dinner at Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King). It was a good day!