My planned search for Fairy Penguins almost fell at the first hurdle when a mistake on my booking meant I didn’t get picked up when I should have, but fortunately a short taxi ride later I caught up with the tour bus!

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The first stop was the Moonlit Sanctuary wildlife conservation park which is around 40km south of Melbourne. Here we saw many animals indigenous to Australia – overnight canadian viagra including long-neck turtles, koalas, dingos, wallabies, wombats and kangaroos. Koalas definitely win the prize for the cutest animal, but also the laziest… they do very little other than eat and sleep! We then moved on to a working farm on Churchill Island which included a sheep shearing demonstration and a chance to look around the old farmhouse, restored to its original state when it was built in the 1850s.

Although we had already had the chance to see one koala in the conservation park, we popped into the Koala Conservation Centre where you can see koalas in their natural habitat. The highlight was a mother and baby, and a male who obviously wanted to be the father for her next baby! Continuing our journey onto Phillip Island ready for the main evening event, we spent some time at Cape Woolamai which is a lovely beach (with the exception of the dangerous rip tides and occasional Great White shark) and Seal Rock (which is unsurprising home to a large seal community).

Finally we took up our seats on Summerland Beach ready for the famous ‘Penguin Parade’. Everyday thousands of Little Penguins (also known as Fairy Penguins) make the journey up the beach from the sea to their burrows, which can be over 1km inland. At this time of year most have chicks waiting at home and spend the day fishing out at sea. The event happens daily like clockwork, as the penguins wait for the sunset to reduce the risk of predators as they cross the open beach. It is a fascinating experience to see so many penguins (which are about 1 foot tall) waddling up the beach in packs, occasionally running back to the sea if they think there might be danger before regrouping and trying again.

My time in Melbourne is already up, although I’m hoping to spend a few more days here at the end of January before flying home. Tomorrow I fly to Sydney to meet up with Noz!