Penguin Orgy

Yesterday was a gorgeous, clear, crisp winter day in Melbourne. So I decided the weather was cooperating enough for a trip to Philip Island today. I picked up a few tips for those who have never done this and aren't going with a local.

The first is that if you tell your Android phone to 'Navigate to Philips island' it will give you a route that takes 59 days, includes tolls, a ferry, and passes through Japan. This is *not* the right island. Thankfully the island I was seeking was only a two hour drive from Melbourne. So I took out my Flexicar Honda Jazz with a picnic lunch and faced my first tollway/freeway experience on the left.

The nice thing about the M1 tollway is that it is full speed for all lanes. No tollbooths, just glowing overhangs that make your toll device go beep really loud when you go under them. I'm not sure if they check speed at the same time, so I was a good girl, 80km/hr feels slower than it sounds. It rained for most of the drive down, but I was rewarded with a magnificent view of the ocean when the sun broke through in that glorious stormy way.



Philip Island is on the Bass Straight which is 350 km of water between Australia and Tasmania. It is home to the 'Little Penguin'. Sometimes they are known as Fairy Penguins, but that is not correct according to my guide. They are the smallest of the 17 penguin species and the only ones that are blue and white instead of black and white. So they are clearly fashion forward even if they aren't fairies.

Penguins were the reason I went to the island. But they don't make an appearance until nightfall, so I sought out the other scenic attractions first. I was told to visit the Koala habitat, so that was my first stop. Koalas are not native to the island, and humans have done a lot of work to make this home viable for them. In the past they flourished so much they decimated the Eucalyptus trees on the island. The informative panels made reference to our own trajectory in this regard. But I have faith that we are better at managing our habitat than an animal that sleeps 20 hours a day. In fact, we have turned our ingenuity to making sure they survive despite their very poor evolutionary choice of eating only eucalyptus leaves. They spend hours eating leaves to get as many calories as we get from a bowl of cereal.

I actually saw one move more than it's head this time, which was nifty. But mostly I spent the afternoon sighting furry lumps in tree branches. The highlight was hearing a Kookaburra and watching some magpies fight over a female.

I arrived at the Penguin Parade grounds at the allotted time and learned the following things that they don't tell you on the website:

1. If you buy the Penguin Plus tickets and don't want to shop at the gift shop for an hour, get there about 30 min before sunset. The birds don't appear until all the light is gone


2. If it is wet that day, bring some plastic to sit on, better yet a blanket


3. The penguins do in fact parade right by you (and 1-4000 other humans) without seeming to be perturbed. So much so that they get right down to business within minutes of arrival. The sounds of penguin lust fills the air and one pair even gave us a show in range of the lights.

The video you can buy detailing the lives of these lovely birds has a label that says 'mature themes', but the website has no such warning about the live event.

It was a really neat place, and worth a trip from anywhere in the world. I didn't take a penguin home, but I did get an intimate view of their land lives, which is really better since they clearly have no shame.