Phillip Island - Penguin Parade

Sunday, February 11, 2024 - We arrived in Phillips Island around 5:30 PM, we boarded our tender to the Island about 6:15 PM and then took a bus ride to the Phillips Island Nature Park. The Nature Park is a self funded organization that raises funds to invest in research, conservation and education of Australian wildlife. The visitors center was a beautiful building with lots of information on all the different wildlife found in the area. We then walked down a slightly raised boardwalk created to protect the animals natural habitat. We saw wallabies and many other creatures on our walk down to the beach. We arrived at the stadium seating at the edge of the beach and just before sunset the Park Ranger let us know that the Little Penguin is the smallest (3-5 lbs.) of the 18 penguin species and the only penguins that live permanently in Australia. She then spoke to us about what to expect to hear and to see during this Parade. These penguins spend their entire day in the sea fishing for food and only come ashore to nurture their young and to socialize. The reason they come in at night to avoid being prayed upon by all types of birds, who are looking for their next meal. We were told that we would probably hear the penguins before we saw them and indeed we did, slowly at first and then more and more penguins came out of the ocean and scurried up across the beach to their grassy nests behind us. It was truly an amazing sight and one that we were able to see clearly since we had a good pair of binoculars (thank you Colwells for the great binoculars). Once we saw most of the penguins come ashore we were told to head back on the walkway and we took our time and could see many of the penguins moving throughout the grass and in some cases their babies peaking out of their nests. We then headed for the bus and our trip back to our ship. Once we arrived at the pier we had to wait (over 40 minutes) for the tender, since almost all the guests were on this excursion. In typical Viking fashion, the crew members - mostly officers - were there though to serve us hot tea on the bus, as it was a little chilly out. We were then on the last tender to go back to the ship and arrived around midnight and waiting in our rooms was a midnight snack. The crew did an awesome job in getting almost 900 people to and from the Penguin Parade, a truly once in a lifetime experience - and we are so grateful for the opportunity to witness it.