Penguin Paradiso

,So much for my promise to keep up with the blog!

Still it's amazing how quickly the new becomes the norm and the inspiration for writing is lost. We have now been in Oz for over a year and despite missing the U.K., there is a lot to say for life down under, particularly Melbourne's charms, which worm their way in ... We have no dates for our return as yet, and continue to find places to visit , trying to pack everything in, in case we don't come back, though I fear we may be visiting our children in years to come on a granny visa!

Yesterday, the first day of school holidays, we visited Phillip Island, a two hour drive from Brighton. The main reason for our trip was to witness the Penguin Parade, a nightly procession of Little (very fitting name!) Penguins, as they touch down ashore in squadrons and then hurtle up the beach, some appearing to shout incoming as a few dive back to the safety of the sea fearful of attack from enemies overhead.

You see this at first from a distant platform and then you hear their odd calls, whistles and barks as they approach, finally appearing in front of you less graceful singularly then on masse amongst the seaweed.

People have been coming since 1920 to witness this although they sat on the beaches, as these tiny sea birds , oblivious to the 'odd looking statues', made their way up the dunes to their burrows. Now in the twenty first century we are herded like cats into giant stands in our thousands- what a spectacle- although you can pay double for a more intimate view among 150 'close' friends. The main advantage for this is that after the large thousand seater stands were built the penguins decided to move their parade along the beach- what a surprise- so the tourist centre built a more 'exclusive' ( closer) viewing area for a premium. Let us not take away from the sight however we have come to see.

I watched one particularly fat fellow wobbling home alongside the boardwalk as if returning from a heavy nights drinking session, his wife, no doubt having having refused to pick him, and wondered how they memorise their way back to Chez Penguin. Some remember a 1.5km route in the dark, with no appreciable features to me, amongst the myriad of tracks and dense plant cover. The wonder of nature?!? I can't even find my car in the supermarket car park.

Happily there is no smell apart from the salt sea air and the dominating sounds are the huge variant of penguin calls and children's ' reactions as they watch enthralled.

The whole event takes less than an hour and quickly refuelled by a dreadful hot chocolate and re fleeced by a trip to the Penguin Stop Shop we begin the night drive home.

I should also add that we spent the afternoon with a drive to the Nobbies, not a peanut factory but a group of rocks so named because they stick up from the sea( so Aussie)which was worth a visit for the pleasant boardwalk stroll, although no one is allowed to walk out on the causeway anymore to protect the mutton birds which roost among the rocks.

Rhyll was also a pleasant stop although not for the thrill seekers amongst you, more for the hungover brigade needing a little sea air to cleanse their souls. A three shop stop with a pleasant jetty and the sights, sounds and smells of a fishing village- stop now if you don't like long descriptive passages by budding writers ; the singing of the wires from boats dry berthed, a chain clanking rhythmically against a mast, pieces of bone and feather seeping out from the sands, enucleated fish heads on the seaweed, discarded by fisherman, being picked at by gulls for the last remaining morsels of flesh, the noise of of forced air from a wetsuit mechanical like a piston as a man walks up the launch, the tops of white surf spraying into the air, the smell of the sea salt, the feel of whipped skin on you face and tangled hair in you eyes. Then a crap coffee in a homely coffee house with more staff than customers and a rushed tea. Oh the ebb and flow of a day by the.....