Penguin Night

---

Tuesday 9/16 brought another windy morning with sporadic cold rain. We took a 40-minute vehicle ferry ride from Queenscliff to Sorrento in order to avoid having to drive through Melbourne. We then headed to our destination of the day, which was the town of Cowes on Phillip Island. The highlight was a visit to the Phillip Island Nature Park to see their nightly penguin parade. This place is a conservation center for 12-inch penguins simply called little penguins or fairy penguins. We took a small group tour that had us dressing in dark rain gear, sitting (shivering!) on the beach until well after dark, and using night vision binoculars to watch the little penguins come up from the water and march across the beach to their burrows. The penguin parade was truly a fascinating spectacle. We could even hear the penguins clucking to each other through the whole process. It was somewhat ironic that we humans dressed up like penguins to watch the penguins march from the beach and then later the penguins with burrows along the road stood quietly and watched us go by as we walked back to the tour facility. We think it was really more of a people parade for the penguins!

---

Photos

Penguin watchers
Dean and Tammy suited up to go out and watch penguins.

Nobbies
Two islands off the coast of Phillip Island near the Penguin Parade.