Penguin Parade Airbnb Holiday 🐧

Everyone was picked up from their house on the bus on Saturday afternoon with Anthony as our driver. It was about an hour and a half drive to our Airbnb in Phillip Island, so I had a very important job looking after the music. Let's just say no one was a fan of my 'Glee' music, and One Direction and Justin Bieber were in high demand!

We were so lucky and had beautiful weather, it was such a nice drive up, and the scenery was so green and luscious.

Once we got to our Airbnb, we had a couple of hours before leaving to make our way to the Penguin Parade, so we settled in, had some lunch, and played a few board games/video games. Isaac even showed us some taekwondo!

Now it was finally time to go to the Penguin Parade! Once we got there, we looked on the information board, which told us that the expected arrival time for the penguins was 6:00 PM. So we had time to read up on Little Penguins and look around.

There was lots of geese roaming around the penguins burrows.

We even saw some wallabies!

Below is a penguin that we saw come out of its burrow as we walked along the boardwalk to get to our seats. A ranger told us that it is very unusual to see these little penguins during sunlight as they are the only penguin specie whose activity on land is strictly nocturnal.

We are all waiting for the little penguins to return from the sea. We were so excited to see them! It was freezing as we waited an hour next to the shoreline; luckily, we were all rugged up.

Every night it is the ranger's job to count how many penguins come in from the water individually, so they stand there with binoculars, so they don't miss any of them. As we waited, one of the rangers told us some facts about little penguins. We learnt that they stand about 35cm tall, weigh about 1.2 kg and are the only penguin to breed in Australia.

The ranger also told us that little penguins gather offshore in groups called ‘rafts’ before coming to land. They wait for dusk before crossing the beach to hide from predators such as birds of prey like pacific gulls and sea eagles. They waddle across the shore in groups and follow familiar tracks back to their burrow. They look for landmarks or listen to a partner calling to help them find their way home.

HERE THEY COME!!!! How cute.

We watched a few groups of penguins come out of the water, but then we moved to the boardwalk, where we could see all of them make their way to their burrows. There were so many penguins everywhere. It was the penguin's breeding season, so we saw lots of breeding activity. Listening to all their sounds was so fascinating to watch and listen to. After a great time, we returned to our Airbnb and had dinner.

For dinner, we made homemade pizzas. The rest of the night included murder in the dark which is an all-time favourite, FIFA tournaments on the Xbox, Mario Kart, movies, and some card games.

The following day, everyone got up super early; we had some breakfast and made our journey back home.

Thanks to everyone that came; it was such a great weekend. Everyone met Brett, our newest team member to onesocial, whom you will all see at future events. Please feel free to introduce yourself.

We look forward to seeing you all again!

- Brooke & the team at onesocial :)