Bass Strait

We had a leisure morning.
Bob went to breakfast while I checked emails and paid some bills.
At 10:20 AM we headed to the Winter Garden to watch about 10 couples participate in a vow renewal ceremony. Viking out did itself once again. It was a lovely ceremony complete with cake cutting, champagne and dancing.

After the vow renewal ceremony, we went back to the stateroom to change into casual clothes. The weather has changed significantly. We had tremendous winds last night which resulted in the most motion so far on this trip.

We went to lunch in the World Cafe. During lunch we found out that there was no power on Philip Island. The winds last night caused widespread outages in Melbourne and Philip Island. We decided that we will still make a trip to the island this afternoon.

After lunch, we went back to the Stateroom and put on warmer clothes.
We caught the tender with Dale and Jenni to see if we can find any adventures.

We walked through town. Due to lack of electricity, only one store was open. It was Coles grocery store. We find it fascinating to investigate grocery stores around the world. I found some essential oils to diffuse in our stateroom. We also purchased popcorn, chips and salsa because we clearly have not been eating enough.

Next, we walked back through town. It is a quaint town with beautiful trees.
We caught the shuttle back to the marina, took some photos of birds, and caught the tender back to the ship.

We had a quick early dinner at 4:30 PM because our excursion, the Penguin Parade, was to depart at 5:15.

After dinner, we changed into and packed some warm clothes because we were warned that this evening it would get chilly watching the penguins. Then we were off the to Star Theatre to get a ticket for the tender ride to Philip Island.

Phillip Island is home to the largest Little Penguin colony in the world. During our excursion we are to be able to experience the magic of watching these amazing seabirds waddle home from the ocean to their burrows.

Bob, Jenni and I (Dale opted to stay warm on the ship) got on the same tender and bus. When we arrived at the Penguin Parade facility, we were told that the doors to the boardwalks and stands would not open until 7:00 PM so we had a bit of a wait. We looked at the souvenir shops but did not find anything intriguing so we lined up early.

During our wait in line, we were able to observe Wallabies through the window as they came to the stream to drink.

At 7 PM, we were allowed to begin our walk to the stands where we would be able to view the penguins immerge from the surf and parade across the sand. The three of us decided to leisurely make our way to the stands. No photography is allowed after sunset to protect the penguins vision so we did not see a reason to rush to the stands. On the way, we were able to observe many wallabies, geese, some baby penguins in their burrows, and numerous other birds.

We were still quite early to the stands as the penguins do not exit from the surf until after sunset. This is a defense mechanism because their greatest predators while crossing the beach are birds of prey. Since the birds of prey return to their nests after sunset, the penguins have evolved to only make this journey after the sunsets.

Once the sun sat, we waited about another 20 minutes before the first group of penguins exited the surf. We watched for another 30 minutes. At this point, many people exited the very chilly stands to make their way up to the visitor's center and awaiting bus. Bob, Jenni and I repositioned ourselves to get better views and watched for another 20 minutes.

We were treated with seeing a Bandicoot. Bandicoots are terrestrial, largely nocturnal, solitary animals that dig funnel-like pits in their search for insect and plant food. These animals were extinct on Philip Island until foxes were eradicated. A breeding pair was re-introduced to Philip Island and they are thriving. They are now listed as endangered but their numbers continue to improve.

As we made our way along the boardwalk, we were treated with observing the birds returning to their burrows and greeting their young. We were so intrigued with watching the penguins that the staff had to move us along as they said that they would soon be turning out the lights.

We were able to catch the last bus back to the tender boats but by the time we arrived at the tender boats, there were 3 other buses ahead of us. We have an extensive wait before we were told that we could exit the bus and head to the tenders.

We finally made it back to the ship close to midnight.

Full disclosure, the photos of the penguin parade were downloaded from their website. They welcome people to use these photos.Read more