A long but worthwhile day (post 4)

After a night at the cricket, we planned something a bit more restful for the following day.

So we had booked a bus trip to Phillip Island, about 2 hours away. It wasn't an early start because the last item on the itinerary wasn't due to happen until about 9pm.

Stop 1

So we boarded our bus and went off to Brighton Beach to see some Beach Box;s. essentially Beach Huts to you and me. Brighton is the last place to have them in this part of the world, and will set you back about £200;000 if you really wanted one.

Stop 2

That was just a short stop before we went to an animal sanctuary called The Moonlight sanctuary. they look after native Australian animals that have been in road accidents. They wont be going back in the wild. They had wombats, kangaroos, wallaby, dingos and Koalas. we could have held Koalas but the session was already booked up when i went to pay. we got Kangaroo food so we could feed the wallaby and Roos, but they were too busy sleeping under the trees away from the early afternoon sun.

it was only us mad humans that were in the sun.

Stop 3

When we arrived at Phillip Island we were taken to a beach so see some surfers, But even though the surf was up no-one was playing out today. We still thought that the water looked rough and you wouldn't have got me in there.

Stop 4

We were then taken to Philip island to a place called the Nobbys, This was right at the tip of the island and was part of a large nature reserve, Along the way we saw loads of wild wallaby,s in the fields.

The birds at the Nobbys were all making such a din you could hardly here each other talk, they were flying high then swooping down over the visitors,

All over the side of the hill that led up from the beach were burrows and little 'huts' for penguins to live in. but we didn't see any of them.

Stop 5

We were due some food, so we went to Cowes for something to eat,

Stop 6

This was what the day had been building up to. We were about to sit at the edge of a beech for an hour at sunset to see little penguins come to shore and go to their burrows.

It was an amazing sight seeing these penguins, all about a foot tall, gather at the edge of the sea. They would keep going back into the sea until there were enough in the group and they felt brave enough to cover the 100 yards or so across the beach. sometimes they would get half way across and turn back to start it all over again.

They would stat to go through paths on the dunes to find their nesting places. The dunes were a vast area, and some had a long way to go once on land. there was even an area known by the rangers as Penguin highway as so many of them took that route,

These pictures are stock pictures from The penguin parade website as we wern't allowed to take any.

All in all after our trip back to the hotel we had a great day