Phillip Island

We picked up a little red Hyundai and headed out of Melbourne to Phillip Island, a couple of hours southeast.  This isn't the general direction we'd planned on heading, but we decided this detour would be worth it...... And was it ever!  We had a fantastic day.

First stop was our guest house for check-in.   Delightful place.  Then off to The Koala Conservation Centre.  Even though it was in the mid-90's, we loved walking around.  There were some raised boardwalks so you could get a better look at the koalas in the trees.  They were hanging out, not very active in the day time, especially in the heat.  All the better for photos!  Besides koalas, we saw echidnas (the only mammal besides the duckbilled platypus that lays eggs), black wallabies (darker color and a little smaller than the Bennett's wallabies in Freycinet N.P., a kookaburra, and some honey eaters (birds).

Then off to the very tip of the island to the Nobbies, rock islands just offshore.

And finally to the Penguin parade, the nightly coming-ashore of the littlest penguins, just about half an hour after sunset. We opted out of the grandstand viewing area and splurged on a guided walk with a ranger to another beach.  There were just 8 people and it was wonderful.  He gave us lots of info about the island, the penguins, other wildlife, and the stars.  We each had a night vision scope and sat quietly in a group on the beach as the penguins emerged from the surf and walked past us to get to their burrows.  On the walk back to the visitors' center (by a very different route than the crowd goes), we saw penguin mates greeting each other as they returned, chicks waiting for their parents to show up with dinner, molting penguins, and a little squawk when one penguin was going near another's burrow.  All within a couple of feet of us! They make a happy trilling sound as they arrive back in the burrows.   There are around 30,000 birds in this colony.  This was a dream come true for a penguin lover!