Penguins on Parade

Monday, April 1, 2019   Melbourne and Phillips Island

We're out on the tip of Phillip Is (the "Nobbies"), where the little Blue Penguins emerge every evening. Where we watched "Penguins on Parade" was just east of here a little ways, where they have grand stands and a sandy beach. The Nobbies had numerous penguin houses and dug-outs, but we did not see any of the babies out waiting for mommy and daddy to come in at dusk.

Our tour started at about 11 am, because it ended so late at night. So, we walked to the Victoria Mkt for shopping and breakfast, but darned, the market was closed on Mondays. So, we took the tram on back.

Our tour headed southeast out of Melbourne toward the Bass Coast. We had not gotten far, to St. Kilda right on Port Phillip Bay, when our guide pointed out a 1912 roller coaster, the world's oldest continuously operating coaster. Then we went to Brighton Beach, to see these famous Bathing Boxes.

From Brighton Beach, in my new surfer shirt Janet bought me the day before, looking back at the Melbourne skyline.

These tiny storage bungalows, originally from the early 20th century, have acquired such a status that they sell for $265,000.

There are 82 of them.

On our long drive toward Phillip Island, we passed by some weird "art" next to the freeway.

I guess this was supposed to be a huge rock fallen from the sky.

Our next stop was the Maru Koala and Animal Park, on the lower east side of Western Port Bay.

 Lots of cute koalas, and many other Australian critters.

 A wallaby. They have the bigger butt, compared to a kangaroo.

A kingfisher.

A kookaburra.

We liked this preserve because the kangaroos and wallabies ran free and could get away from tourists if they wished, like these roos.

Attractive dingoes.

A barking owl.

The only shot I was able to get of their Tasmanian devil, sleeping in his box. It's a carnivorous marsupial, once native to mainland Australia, but now found in the wild only on Tasmania.  The size of a small dog, it became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world when the thylacine went extinct in 1936. It is characterized by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odor, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding.

 They put on a little animal show, and this cockatoo could talk and follow directions.

This guy is a Tawny Frogmouth.

We then drove across the isthmus onto Phillip Island, and continued to the far west tip, the Summerland Peninsula. You can see two wooden penguin nests in the foreground. They built them to assist the penguins since their own dug-out nests don't always last too long.

More pretty scenery out at the Nobbies.

We wandered all over the hills looking for baby penguins, but didn't see any. 

We did see numerous boxes, though, but the little ones must have been inside. Once the adults would emerge from the ocean that evening, they would waddle up to their own nests and feed their chicks.

Pretty south-facing coastline. We drove to the north side of the island, to Cowes, for dinner. Along the way, we saw wallabies all over the place, even having to stop to keep from running over some of them.

As we headed off, we also passed by where we would be later to watch the Penguin Parade. That's the beach where they would emerge.

And here's a close-up of the viewing area. We splurged to sit in the tiny bleachers in the very center of the photo, with a naturalist giving us a play-by-play.

This is Cowes, where we found a nice restaurant for dinner.

Janet and I both chose the restaurant's steak special, which included a glass of this New Zealand Pinot Noir.

We then drove all the way back to the Parade spot, and this is our naturalist giving us an introduction about the little blue penguin and where they would be walking later on. Some of them actually crossed the road right where we are standing. No photos were allowed of any penguin!

In their little museum, you could see how small the blue penguin is (on the left) compared to King Penguins and the Southern Rockhopper Penguin. Blue penguins, also called Little Penguins, are the smallest.

The largest is the Emperor, about four times larger than the Blue. They weigh only about 3 lbs.

I took this from the Internet since no photos were allowed, but this is precisely what we saw! Once it's dark (so that the flying predators would be retired for the evening), they hit the beach in groups called rafts, to protect them from sea predators. They would stand there for a few moments to get their bearings, and then they'd waddle on up the beach to seek out their nests. It was lots of fun. After we departed our "private" bleachers, we walked up the boardwalk and could look down right next to us as they waddled along.

We had a long drive back to Melbourne, arriving at about 10 pm, quickly heading off to bed.