The Penguin Pararde

The viewing area by daylight.

Some of the 4000 of us, it was sold out tonight, because it was a warm Saturday evening.

A wallaby hops by and stops to look at us as if to say what are you all waiting for?

Little Penguins leaving the protection of the ocean and marching up the beach to their burrows.

Saturday, February 13^th continued.

I drove around exploring for a bit more before picking up a take-out dinner to take with me to the parade. Luckily for me Leora also told me to buy a ticket from the Nobbies Centre for the parade, which I did, because when I got there it was sold out! So I looked around for a place to sit near where I thought the action would be and ate my dinner. Then the park ranger told us that if we wanted to sit right up close we could sit on the sand right up by the rope at the front. So a few of us went up. I sat on my backpack to keep my keester off the damp sand. We sat there for a couple of hours waiting for sunset. Finally there were over 4000 of us. The rangers told us some information about the site and the Little Penguins which are the smallest penguins in the world. She told us we were not allowed to take photos as the flash would scare the penguins (so the photos aren't mine, they are from the internet). Apparently the penguins arrive just off the beach at dusk every night and wait to leave the water and waddle up the beach in groups of 5 to 20 or more to their burrows. They wait until then to make sure all predatory birds are roosted for the night. The breeding season is over and most of these penguins have no chicks in their burrows and they are settling in for six weeks on land in order to molt and grow a new set of feathers.

Before they arrived I was amusing myself taking photos of seagulls and their reflections when a wallaby came hopping across the beach in front of us. (This actually made the evening news on Monday when they showed a photo almost exactly like this!).

When they finally did go up the beach we could see that some were twice as fat as the others and were having trouble walking as they had gorged in order to survive the six weeks. I sat and watched as wave after way of the Little Penguins made the beach in a miniature D-day. Then I left and walked back up the boardwalk to the centre. From the boardwalk you can see the penguins trudging up through the sand and vegetation to their burrows. Very crowded and touristy, but really an amazing evening.

As I was leaving I ran into Leora again and she gave me the address to the cottage and using my GPS I drove there (about 10 minutes away). Leora, her boyfriend Adam, their Norwegian friend and I had a couple of ciders before I retired about midnight. I stayed in a little cabin out behind the cottage. I think it must have been the retreat for the owner's kids. (250 kms driving today).