Our day at Phillip Island was a bit wet. The rain was never heavy and our walk through the Maru animal centre really didn’t get through our outer wear at all. These small animal farms are typical stops for tour coaches and we have encountered them on our last visit to Australia.
Our driver seemed well informed about the little penguins of Phillip Island, the object of this tour. As Colin piloted the large motor coach along the narrow island roads he kept a constant narration going. There are thousands of penguin nesting burrows and thousands more nesting boxes constructed of wood and placed around the island to accommodate the growing Penguin population. The conservation efforts on the island have included buy-back of all the vacation homes once constructed there along with a breeding program and sophistocated electronic monitoring program. These tiny penguins now have stable populations in Australia and New Zealand but during our drive among their nesting area we saw none.
After arriving at the nature centre we visited the obligatory souvenir and food shops before being allowed to walk to the viewing stands at the beach just after sunset. As we scanned the beach and hillside not knowing exactly what to expect we began seeing tiny penguins scaling the rather steep hill from the beach to plateau. The area is covered with thick grasses and brush that would make difficult going for anyone but these little animals with their short legs just motored along. It was a parade. In groups, they walk single file along paths that they apparently travel nearly every evening to their nests and every morning back to the sea. Although the parade was less spectacular than I had envisioned it was still quite impressive.
While we saw no penguins while driving through the nesting area we saw more wallabies than we could count. There were a number of grey geese and in the waters between the island and mainland we saw black swans and a few pelicans and seals.
After the Penguin Parade Colin took the coach back to Melbourne. We disembarked at Federation Square and walked up the two block Russell Street hill then another few blocks to our hotel. We got to sleep quickly to be ready for a six o’clock wake up.
I will try to get the Puffing Billy experience done this evening. For anyone with kids you might check out the photo album for this day. Here it is: Phillip Island.
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