Cowes and Penguins

About 2 hours south from Melbourne is a small island called Phillip Island. A little bit like the Isle of Wight (even with some of the same place names, but without the slack jawed inbred locals ; ) ). It's a nice enough place with some good beaches, one or two decent surf spots, a Grand Prix circuit (Motorbikes) and the famous Penguin Parade.

We arrived early in the day and after a trip into the main town, Cowes, for a spot of lunch we headed over to Woolamai so I could get a surf in and Kate could work on the old tan.

We'd called in at the visitors information cente on the way into town to secure our place at the Penguin Parade that evening so at around 7:00 we headed over to the south-western point of the island to pick a spot and await the arrival of the wee lil Fairy Penguins.

Around two hours later the first little fellas started waddling up the beach to the homes in the sand dunes. We were lucky enough to arrive during the time of year when the baby Penguins are just old enough to make it out of their burrows to greet Mum and Dad after their day at sea and get ready for some tasty regurgitated fish...Mm Mm Mmmm ain't nature grand!

The Fairy Penguins are just too cute for words, at about 15 inches tall they're the smallest of all Penguins. Whilst the whole parade is overly commercialised we're both glad we took the time (along with about 3,000 other people per night) to watch their evening commute home.