Phillip Island

After a late night with the Twelve Apostles, we rented a car, packed it with picnic supplies, and drove down to Phillip Island. Yes, you heard me right: I DROVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD! And I did pretty darn good if I do say so myself. The hardest part was that the blinker is also on the other side, so my wipers went off for more than a few signals. But driving along the Aussie countryside, windows down, and music on is one of the greatest experiences of the trip thus far.

We got to Phillip Island and walked out onto a beach pretty much to ourselves. We picnicked and applied buckets of sunscreen.

That evening was the main reason for our trip out of the city: the Penguin Parade. The island is home to 30,000 little penguins that are only 10" tall. Each evening, around 1500 of these lil nugs come back to land after fishing for a couple weeks. We sat on the beach, watched the sunset, and waited for them to waddle their way home. The park asks for no photos or loud noises at night to protect the mini penguins, so sorry no pics. But imagine these cuties scurrying their way up the beach and diving into little holes in the sand. They walked right along our pathway, so we saw them up close and personal- mamas feeding babies and even two that looked like they were kissing (or just gently pecking around each other's face, but I like kissing). In the park, we also saw a seal that I'm pretending was NOT fishing for my mini penguins, wallabies and a wombat. Nature for the win!

The sign will have to do since I couldn't get a pic with a real one

The park gives the penguins these little homes to help with erosion. If you look close, you can see one inside! (No worries- I didn't break any rules. The sun was still out) 

We had pretty much front row seats on the beach to search for our new friends