Day 46.

Penguin Parade

We started our day by visiting a small bakery just before the bridge connecting us to Phillip Island. Luckily the weather was fairly warm (making a change from the cold weather we'd had!) so we sat outside by the water and tucked into a home made pie and muffin! We'd gotten to Phillip Island early to see some of the island before going to the Penguin Parade later on!

My tour guide Joan (my aunt but bless her she's been a personal tour guide/taxi driver!) took me to Cape Woolamai first which was a lovely quiet beach IDEAL for surfers. The waves were big and powerful but apparently nothing compared to ones I will see further on my tour up north but all I know is they put Santa Monica waves to shame! Also my first time using my GoPro!

We then drove through the rest of the island passing a chocolate factory, an airport and a several hotels! How big is this island!? Up to the end of the island known as The Nobbies. This part of the island is right on the coast and has a wrap around board walk going down the coast and up to the blow hole, I could be back in England the way the landscape was here! The sun was low in the sky and I managed I get some really good photos of the area.

We drove towards the Penguin Parade pretty slow as all animals on the island pretty much have freedom of the land so we were dodging pretty much everything going! When we got to the car park my aunt piled my bag full of sandwiches, crisps and a drink, I was only going in for an hour! (God I'll miss this next week when I'm back on my own eating cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner!) but when we got to the ticket office they wouldn't let Joan in even to the foyer because she didn't have a ticket! She's seen the show 101 times so was sitting this one out, but bless her she had to pay $16 just to sit in the foyer! So while she sat there I got my free hot chocolate (if it's free I'm getting it, never mind a 15 minutes wait!) and headed down the board walk to the penguin pier!

 

   

Now unfortunately it was no photography allowed so I don't have any photos of them but it was adorable! We had to sit and wait until a second before dusk before the penguins would come out of the water, they do this because predator birds stop hunting at dusk so it's safe for them to come ashore. This being after being out at sea either all day or up to 3 weeks away! Depending on how much fish they catch and if they have a family, they tend to dive up to 700/800 times a day for a total of 25 fish! So most times the poor buggers come up with nothing! When they come ashore, they huddle in packs at the waters edge calling to each other (quiet loudly!) then once a group is formed they waddle across the beach to their huts and burrows. Literally one of the cutest things I've ever seen is a huddle of penguins making their way across a beach! They're pretty slow too because they're so full of fish! So they waddle for a bit, lay on their bellies for a rest, get back up and keep going! The amount of penguins ranges depending on the time of year, winter there isn't many and summer, because of breeding, there can be up to as many as 3500 that come in from fishing!

I'd opted for 'Penguin Plus' which was a seating area much closer to the huts and was right next to where the penguins walk past so I got a really amazing view point! Once they reached where the pier was they began to separate off and head to their own burrows (a few kicking off because some got the wrong burrows! Diva penguins...). As they waddled past I couldn't believe how small they are, they stand no higher than about 40cm fully grown! They're actually the smallest penguins in the world. As the majority of penguins carried on heading up the path, I noticed a few penguins coming out of the burrows and rummaging in the grass, this is apparently mother penguins looking for shells which they eat for the calcium to make they're eggs tougher!

All around you could hear the baby penguins shouting out, clearly it was feeding time because you couldn't hear a thing before they came ashore! I followed a group of the penguins along the board walk as some went off to their burrows there was one chubby little penguin which caught my eye, mainly because he was totally on his own and was resting every 50 yards! Bless him, so full of fish he couldn't even walk, not going to lie I kind of saw myself in him!... As I followed the board walk up to the foyer I noticed 2 penguins that had come a long way up and because there was no one around I took a sneaky photo! It's very dark but you can see them slightly!

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