01 Apr Penguin Parade

The first hint I had that the evening on Phillip Island was going to be unique came in the form of this sign in the Visitor Center:

My husband and I had decided to spend the night on this Australian island, a couple of hours from Melbourne, in order to see the Penguin Parade, a nightly event that turned out to be exactly as adorable as the name promised. And it delivers exactly what it claims to: a parade of penguins, hundreds of them coming ashore once the sun sets, landing on the beach and heading to their burrows.

The viewing areas are set off from the landing site, in order to protect the penguins and their habitats. A series of boardwalks are built over the area immediately inland, so that you can wander around after the penguins land, and watch them up close as they make their way to their burrows.

We’d been a little concerned about the viewing conditions, after reading the Lonely Planet description:

The concept may sound horribly commercial—and with four thousand visitors a night at the busiest time of the year… it can hardly fail to be… Spectators sit in concrete-stepped stadiums looking down onto a floodlit beach, with taped narrations in Japanese, Taiwanese and English.  

Although the book later assured us that “the parade manages to transcend the setting, as the penguins come pouring onto the beach,” we decided to splurge on the Penguin Plus experience.  The tickets ended up costing a little over $40 Australian apiece, nearly doubling the price, but it meant that we were sitting in a much smaller area, closer to the ocean and situated exactly where a number of the penguins would come ashore.

We arrived an hour before sunset, as requested, and as it grew darker, an anticipatory hum built up among the 200 or so people in our bleachers. The ranger assigned to that section alternated between answering questions (“The penguins can walk up to two kilometers before reaching their burrows”) and reprimanding people who refused to believe that the strict no-photography rule actually applied to them (“Sir, I have already asked you to put your camera away. Please don’t make me ask you to leave.”)  I silently rooted her on, since an army of flashbulbs would have made it nearly impossible to make out the birds’ arrival. She explained that the penguins only came ashore once the sun had set, since they had to cross a level expanse of sand, which would make them vulnerable to predators if it were light out.

As the last streaks of daylight faded from the sky, I squinted at the beach, trying to make out any shapes against the dark water. Suddenly, excited murmurs broke out, and people started pointing forward. An inky patch, barely visible, was floating towards the beach. As the waves washed away, the patch remained, and suddenly split apart, into dozens of penguins, standing on the water’s edge. The group, momentarily motionless, made a (slow) break away from the ocean and across the narrow expanse of beach. They gathered several feet away from where the audience was sitting, some strolling leisurely towards the burrows, others grouped together in a little penguin klatsch.

More murmurs broke out. Another raft of penguins had arrived, and still more would rafts would arrive over the next thirty or forty minutes.  They all followed the same pattern, stopping momentarily after landing before waddling across the sand as quickly as possible. Occasionally, a penguin or two would fall behind and would freeze at the water’s edge, too nervous to continue without the group. They’d stay there until the next raft arrived, skittering nervously towards the beach, before falling back, not daring to cross until they had a group to travel with.

After the rafts of penguins had abated, we wandered around the boardwalks, watching them make their way to their holes. If there were anything more adorable than groups of penguins purposefully waddling together, I don’t think I could handle it; I would be too busy melting from cute overload.

The penguins are Little Penguins (by name, not just by description). They stand about a foot tall, and are found in the waters around Australia and New Zealand.  The colony at Phillip Island has more than a thousand, although we only saw a couple hundred come ashore. But that was enough. We wandered the boardwalks as they bustled past us (to the extent that penguins can bustle), and marveled at the evening as we made our way toward the exit.

We forgot to check under the car for penguins.

Emily Seftel Copyright(c) 2013 All Rights Reserved