Saturday was a fantastic day. We finally broke free of the Melbourne city limits and travelled two hours by bus to Philip Island southeast of the city. This was a bus tour with APT tours and it was very well run. With stops along the way to feed some kangaroos and get really close to koalas we finally arrived at the very tip of Phillip Island where we had come to watch the Little Penguin - the smallest in the species - make its nightly venture out of the surf and waddle up the sand to the safety of its sandy burrow.
This part of the world was homesteaded about 200 years ago and some of the land saw some of the earliest crops planted anywhere on the continent. Another of the islands in the area also served some time as one of the many penal institutions to which Australia can lay claim. Today a majority of the real estate is vacation properties that Melburnians use in the summer months.
This is quite spectacular country, with kangaroos and wallabies running wild, great surfing and incredible vistas as you look across Bass strait towards Tasmania 200 nautical miles away. We were not allowed to take pictures of the penguins and it was quite a stormy night but we have many images in our minds of these tiny and very cute little birds suddenly appearing out of the surf under the spotlights and to the cheers of a few hundred spectators. It's actually quite moving and touristy all at the same time - being a part of a natural event that's been happening for so many thousands of years. It's nice to know that humans haven't totally screwed up all of the opportunities we have to interact in and with nature.
This was a very memorable moment. The pounding surf, the penguins, being there with the kids. We definitely would rank this day at the very top of our list of Melbourne moments so far.
PS - From the Australian lingo files; sneakybeak = to be nosey
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