Penguins!

This is my last day in the Melbourne area - had a bit of a slow start as I wasn't feeling up to snuff this morning - I am just hoping I don't have what made some of them sick on the plane back from Vanuatu -  the quarantine people took them all away quick...

 Some of these you will have seen of course - but today was nice and sunny and 32 degrees.

 Funny how places look so much nicer in the sun!

Flinder St station looks nice against blue sky.

 Melbourne wants a larger tower built downtown to rival the rest of the world..

 This sign refers to the left then right manoeuvre unique here.

 Then off to Philip Island - bit of a disaster getting here - it's tougher than I thought. But, made it, just in time to see wallabies!

 Oh there's always one out of place - this building is 2 hours drive away.

 Wild wallabies.

 Are they cute or what?

A penguin nest below.

 The penguin centre.

 2nd from right is the little penguin of Australia. Much smaller than others and vulnerable.

 I had special tickets. 2000 people where in one area awaiting the penguins nightly return from fishing. 3 of us went with a ranger to a different beach. They close off the whole area to traffic for the penguin return to their nests... Here is a stuffed one as we get our night vision gear. In the 60s they were called 'fairy penguins' but the world changed the use of the first word - so now they are just known as 'little penguins'.

 This is the beach we went down to. Philip Island had 10 colonies but in the 60s the development of the island had destroyed 9 of them. In this area new holiday homes and a hotel had opened and the remaining colony was in trouble, people would drive cars on the beach, shine lights, run them over.

So the gov't bought the homes back, demolished everything, closes the roads at night and has a visitor centre to control the viewing.

 They no longer allow pics of penguins to be taken at all - as flashes disorient them and no one follows the orders to turn the flash off.

 Beautiful warm night we sat on our secluded beach and watched them come in.

  Another great night! Shame there's no pics, but those penguins are well looked after now! They are cute and waddly things for sure... but where are we on the wildlife count to see it all?? Hmm...