It was time to get in touch with the animals. We went on a cruise with Wildlife Cruises out to Seal Rocks, home to a seal colony 8 0000 animals large! It was really cool seeing so many seals on such a small island, literally every inch of the rocks were covered in seals. And boy do these guys stink!
There was a little house on the rocks and apparently a seal scientist lived out there for 10 years. I don’t know how he did it! We then continued on to the famous Penguin Parade. We got our tickets and wandered down to the beach to watch the Little Penguins come in.
It gets very very cold, I ended up wrapping myself in one of our sleeping bags, so make sure you dress warmly! The penguins huddled in groups (called rafts) in the water and started to come in from sea when it began to get dark. All of a sudden, a hundred penguins would just appear on the shore and stand there, looking confused. Then one would decide to take off up the beach and the rest would follow. Once they reach to top of the beach they just chilled out and sat there grooming themselves. They came so close, they were literally a foot from where we were sitting, just hanging out. It was so special and they were so funny and uncoordinated. These penguins are the smallest in the world, reaching a total height of thirty centimetres, which means they are just so little and cute! After a while they waddle up to their burrows in the hills and sand dunes. Occasionally there would the odd penguin who had just eaten too much and had to have a little lie down, in the middle of the path of course! You really get to have an intimate experience with these little penguins, they just wander past and don’t seem to mind all the humans.
We walked the boardwalk that meanders through the sand dunes and just watched the little guys battle it up to their houses for ages. There were so many of them, all that could be heard was their chirping. It was awesome!
http://tickets.penguins.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22&Itemid=38
For more information on travelling around Victoria make sure you check out:
http://www.backpackvictoria.com/
