We were picked up at 10:45am by our friendly Eco Platypus tour guide, Luke, for our Phillip Island Day trip.

We made a pit stop on the way to the island for some food in a small village - Tooradin. There is not much at all here, other than a river, but they do make good egg and bacon sangers (sarnies to the poms).

From here we made our way to Kalcunda, a small seaside town, where our tour guide grew up - so he took us to the best places. Nice beaches and good surf! We walked along the beach and around the point, before reboarding the bus.

We drove through San Remo to get to the bridge to cross onto Phillip Island. This is a very popular spot for great white sharks, it is also where an annual swim across the channel is held - mad or what?!

Our first stop on the island was outside the Moto Gp race track - we decided not to go in as it was quite pricy and nothing was going on, but we managed to get a couple of photos from the roadside. As we were the only 2 petrol heads on the bus, this was a special stop just for us!!

We then went to the koala conservation centre, where we saw more koalas, wallabys and some parrots!

Our next stop was at the Nobbies, otherwise known as seal rock, Emma was quite gutted as the seals were over 2km away and we didn't get to see a single one!!

We then took the costal road to Cowes. Cowes is the main town on Phillip Island, and it was in the bay here that a 6 metre great white was spotted only 2 weeks ago. We had time here to explore, before getting a beer and enjoying our inclsuive pizza dinner.

We then made our way to the main attraction of the day - the penguin parade.

We walked through the visitor centre before finding a spot on the viewing stand on the beach. No photography is allowed here, as it blinds the penguins and they will never return, so to make it an enjoyable experience for everyone the rangers ban all cameras and camcorders.

We sat and waited in the cold wind for about an hour, before it was dark enough for the penguins to feel safe enough to make their journey from the sea, across the beach and into the bush areas behind the beach where their little chicks waited to be fed.

The first group of penguins finally emerged from the sea, followed by another, then another and another. The rangers say that over 1,000 penguins cross this particular beach everynight.

This was a wonderful experience, and as we made our way along boardwalks back to the bus we managed to get really close to the penguins as they found their little fluffy chicks.

We made our 2 hour return journey to melbourne, and arrived at the hostel just after midnight - this was a very long day, but very enjoyable due to such a great tour guide.

Hope you are all well at home, and not too cold.

Lots of love,

Emma and Lee

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