Phillip Island

Today I took a day tour from Melbourne to see the penguins on Phillip Island, with a couple of stops on the way.

First we drove via Albert Park, which has lovely views of the city over the lake, to Brighton Beach. This is famous for its colourful Victorian bathing boxes. They used to be changing rooms and now go for a small fortune even though you can't do much with them! 

Next stop was Moonlit Sanctuary wildlife park which is a small park of Australian animals. The wombat was my favourite as well as the koalas of course. 

Then onto Phillip Island and after a couple of viewpoints, and some swamp wallaby spotting onto the Penguin Parade. 

Phillip Island is home to the aptly named Little Penguin. They are only about a foot tall - really tiny. They come on shore shortly after sunset each night to their cozy burrows. Visitors have been coming to see them since the 1920s. One beach is open to visitors with boardwalk and seating area you need to stay within. The penguins don't seem to mind and the rest of the beaches they use are closed off to humans. 

Its breeding season at the moment and tonight's count was over 900 penguins. 

I'll happily live on rice and tuna for three months but there is no expense spared when it comes to penguins so I had paid for the premium seats right where the penguins hop ashore. It was ace - I saw hundreds of penguins hop out of the water and waddle past, preen, trip over themselves and call to their mates. They often stopped in front of us to rest, the ranger explained they eat so much at sea they need a rest before waddling up to 2km to their burrows. Some of them had burrows right in front of us though, prime real estate. 

Walking back to the visitor centre the boardwalk goes along the walking route so you can walk alongside the penguins who move surprisingly quickly. To top it all off a couple of swamp wallabies hopped around too, making it a very Australian experience.

Brighton Beach Boxes.....




Moonlit Sanctuary Animals





Phillip Island

Beach at the island (non penguiny) 

My viewpoint for the penguins, spot the burrow in the foreground which was later sat on by a Penguin. 

No photos are allowed after sunset (people can't be trusted to turn their flash off) so below are some photos the centre have.





Some pictures from Melbourne this morning....





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Malmsbury & the Yarra Valley

Image
I was woken by a very noisy crow. The cawing of crows has definitely been the soundtrack to Australia! It was also very cold outside - don't be fooled by the blue sky in the pictures, temperatures were between 7 and 9 degrees all day with a wind that I reckon came straight from the Antarctic. At least it was mostly dry. As I went to school in Malmesbury, Wiltshire I had to stop in Malmsbury, Victoria even though they lost the 'e' at some point. This was once a supply town for the goldfields and now retains a small high street and gardens. It was actually a bit more charming than it came out in the photos and I did my bit for the economy by visiting the bakery and antique/gift shop.  I then realised I was driving straight past Hanging Rock so that made a nice place for a walk and explore. It was too cold for a Picnic at Hanging Rock which is just as well as apparently that's quite a dangerous activity. The rock itself is an extinct volcano and rock type is trachyte. It l...
Read more

Jurien Bay

Image
Yesterday was spent driving south on highway 1. This is the 9,000 mile road which circles Australia but I had enough of it yesterday - I was on a very straight bit for several hours. As I got south though there started to be noticeably more trees, flowers and colourful shrubs.  I stopped off for the night at a lovely Airbnb in Geraldton and this morning drove another couple of hours south to Jurien Bay. I bypassed Jurien Bay on the way north when it would have been raining anyway. There was not a cloud in the sky today. As usual there are pristine white beaches and a turquoise sea. In fact this stretch of the coastline is dubbed the 'turquoise coast'.  There are three things to do in Jurien Bay 1) take a walk along the beach 2) eat fresh mackerel at the beach cafe and 3) go snorkeling with the friendly Australian sealions. I completed the first two today and have a boat ride booked at 7am tomorrow to tick off number three. Apparently sealions like to wake up early.  Some ...
Read more