I Saw the Penguin Parade...

The final leg of our journey to Phillip Island was the Penguin Parade, the most visited tourist site in all of Victoria. Every morning at 5 am, the smallest penguins in the world head out to sea to catch food for their young and every evening at sunset, they battle their way over Summerland Beach to their burrows in the sand dunes.
The conservationists have built bleachers on the sand as well as a wooden boardwalk that run over the sand dunes to view the Little Penguins. We sat on the sand about 30 feet from their route. The penguins nervously come on shore in groups of 3-8 and get pushed around in the crashing waves until they feel brave enough to make a run for it. Seagulls form a barrier along the sand trying to scare the penguins since they often mistake seagulls for sea hawks which might eat them. If a seagull is lucky, it might scare a little penguin enough to make it regurgitate the food it caught for it's young...

Wanna see what they looked like?

An interesting fact I learned is that the penguins have bluish-black backs with white tummies because when they swim on their tummies, the hawks above see blue water and blue penguin... the sharks below see white tummies and white sky... it's a camoflauge!

The penguins were so adorable ... about 1 foot tall and perfect pets! I really wanted to just pick one up and take it... but I guess that wouldn't be very nice. We were told to look under our cars before we left to make sure a stray penguin didn't end up there!

The drive was an adventure in itself because apparently people outside the US don't start driving at age 15 like we did and our flatmates who are 25+ have only been driving for 1 1/2 years... it was one of the scariest experiences I've ever had! Driving for an hour was "hard work" for them and they kept switching out... whereas we drive an hour almost everywhere we go! I'm sure they'd be amazed that I drive 6 hours home with maybe 1 stop! Yikes...