Melbourne - Part 2: Phillip Island

On New Year's Day, we had plans to rent a car and drive to Phillip Island.  Phillip Island is an island (ha!) about two hours southeast of Melbourne.  It has lots of beautiful scenery and beach vacation spots, but it is most well-known for its animal attractions.  There is a Koala Conservation Centre (gasp- we didn't go! The horror!), a Heritage Farm (whatever that means), a Nobbies Centre (yet another Australian nickname- this time for seals), and do do da dooooo a PENGUIN PARADE!  There is also a Grand Prix circuit (which my Nascar/F1 loving husband was excited about, but I hurriedly moved him along to the penguins) as well as some wineries (which my wine-loving self sacrificed for the penguins). 

The drive there was relatively easy.  Most of the scenery along the way looked like this:

We saw this little wallaby along the side of the road and of course had to stop.  He was so close and didn't budge- just stared at us.  That is, until I got out of the car to give him a hug and he hopped off ;-) 

Like any good tourist, our main purpose of going to Phillip Island was to see the famous Penguin Parade, but we also planned to visit the nobbies, since that was free and close by where we needed to be for the penguins.  In case you need a reminder (since it makes no logical sense whatsoever): nobbies = seals.  The nobbies centre has a really neat indoor educational area with lots of information about the seals and other animals that live there. 

Supposedly fur seals are usually all over the place on these cliffs, rocks, etc.; however, they were nowhere to be found.  Not one!  It was strange.  My theory is that the seals got so annoyed at being called nobbies that they moved out.  We were slightly disappointed, but who cares really because we were about to see PENGUINS! Can you tell I was excited?  Also as consolation for lack of seals were the incredible views!  It was such a clear day, and all of the cliffs and coastline were just gorgeous! 

 

 

 

After not seeing a single nobbie, it was time to grab some dinner before heading to the PENGUIN PARADE.  FYI, if you ever happen to visit Phillip Island, eat at Rusty Water Brewery.  The food was great, and they had a yummy beer flight to try! 

So here's the deal with the penguin parade- first, you must know that these penguins are the smallest penguins in the world.  Which also conveniently makes them the cutest penguins in the world!  Anyway, each morning at sunrise these penguins go out to sea to spend their days fishing, and then each evening at sunset they return to their nests.  This is what you are seeing when you view the Penguin Parade.  I do have to admit that this event was super touristy- we're talking buses everywhere, but it was still so worth it to see.  They have built a large seating area (almost stadium-like) for people to sit in above the beach while they wait for the penguins. (Also important to note- it gets realllly cold while you're sitting there waiting.)  Like clockwork, right as the sun began to set, we started to see little black blobs coming up to shore.  The penguins were coming!!!  The penguins get together in large groups, and before you know it, they're standing on the sand.  It's pretty funny to watch, because it takes them 3 or 4 times to build up their courage to really come ashore- the little groups would keep on running back into the water before finally beginning their parade.  Once they start coming up, it's the cutest thing as they march/waddle in perfect little lines across the beach, and up the hills to their nests.  Their were TONS of them- probably about 20 different groups/lines of them.  After most were out of the water, you could walk around a bit in the area where they have their nests (within the fenced off areas, of course), and you could see them at their nests and hear the little babies squealing for food.  The bad part of whole event was that pictures were not allowed- and they had tons of park rangers around enforcing it.  I managed to sneak a few non-flash photos, but they ended up pretty blurry.  :-(  You'll just have to take my word for it- they were adorable!  It was such a cool sight to see and so amazing to think that these tiny penguins repeat this ritual every single day. 

On the left, you can see the size of the Phillip Island penguins compared to other penguins of the world. 

Waiting for the penguins

Oh look, a photo of my new TOMS (thanks, Lauren!) snuck in here...

Some blurry pictures I snuck as they waddled up to their nests.

 
Even though the few penguin photos I got were pretty blurry, we lucked out because earlier in the day while we were looking for the nobbies that did not seem to exist, we happened to see a lone penguin.  The rangers were surprised that there was a little penguin all by himself on that part of the island.  We are so glad we saw him though, because I did manage to get some better pictures of this little guy.  Isn't he so cute and tiny?!