Jul 16 - Penguin Day!

  Hi Everyone!  It’s finally here!  It’s Penguin Day!

  Today we go to Granite Island to see my friends and relations. 

  We were up bright and early and headed off to the Victor Harbor Information Centre.  Jess and Mr Smart weren’t sure where the Penguin Centre even was so they thought we’d better check there first.  While we were there we saw a Pengi-bank!  My fellow penguins on Granite Island need a lot of help so Jess and Mr Smart let me make a donation.

  It turned out that the Penguin Centre was located on Granite Island itself and we were up early enough to catch the very first tram over the causeway to the island.  Mr Smart likes trams.  At home in Melbourne, that's his favourite way of getting about so he was very happy to see one.  This tram is a bit different though!  There is no electricity involved, the tram is pulled along by a horse.  The horse pulling our tram in the morning was called Mac.  He was very big and intimidating but I got quite close when Jess went to pat him on the nose.  It was a bit drizzly as we boarded the tram set off but that was great, because it meant we had the top of the tram to ourselves!

  The trip across the causeway is only a kilometre but I have very short legs so I was glad I didn't have to walk.  Mac the horse has very long legs and he's very strong.  By the time we got to the tram stop on Granite Island he must've been very tired.  At least the sun had come out so he (and I) could dry off the drizzle for the rest of the day.

  We stopped for a quick look around the gift shop to pass some time while we waited for the Penguin Centre to open then we wandered down to meet some penguins!  The Penguin Centre is currently home to ten Little Blue Penguins like myself, who can't go back into the wild for various reasons.  I could go back to the wild if I wanted to, but I have decided that I like living with Jess and Mr Smart and getting to travel around Australia.
  There was a lot of useful information at the Penguin Centre.  I learned my scientific name, I am a Eudyptula minor!  Jess said that Eudyptula is Latin and means 'good little diver', which sums up we penguins very nicely indeed, and the minor is because we are the smallest penguins in the world!
  The penguins at the centre are fed twice a day and we were there in time for the first feeding.  My tummy was rumbling as the keeper Joyce gave her talk and fed all the other penguins fresh pilchards, but Mr Smart said I would have to wait until my own lunchtime.

  We didn't meet all of the penguins, but we did learn that the best way to tell a boy penguin like me, from a girl penguin, is by looking at the beaks.  Boy penguins generally  have a shorter stouter beak and girl penguins, a slender and longer beak.  The method isn't perfect though, as Joyce introduced us to a pair of penguins, Billy the girl, and Sophie the boy!
  Billy had a sad start in life, but her story has a happy ending.  As a chick, Billy was pulled out of her nest by a child and when the child was told by its mother to put her down, the child dropped her on a rock and her skull was fractured.  She was rescued but it took six months for her to heal and the vets thought she might have fits later in life as a result, but she's lived happily at the Penguin Centre ever since and loves Sophie very much.  Sophie is quite shy, he never came out from under the rock Joyce was sitting on!

  While Sophie and Billy seemed very happy together, some penguins seem to bully their partners a bit.  There was a penguin called Charlie and we didn't get to meet his partner Maddy because he wouldn't let her leave the nest!  Joyce said sometimes he only lets her out every other day, and I thought that was mean, but we also found out that penguins don't mate for life.  Penguin girls pick the house they like best and then take up with the boy who built it, so I guess Charlie must be a good nest builder!  I think I'd better start brushing up on my carpentry skills!
  Joyce also told us that the penguin colony on Granite Island is in dire straights.  In 2008 there were about 2000 penguins in the colony and at last count earlier this year, they think there are only around 26 left.  Lots of things can affect penguin colonies, like feral cats and dogs which used to be a big problem in Bicheno where I come from, and human interference, but the main problems on Granite Island seem to be disruptions in the food chain, and fur seals.  Fur seals like to (gulp) 'play' with penguins.. and they play rough!  Hopefully, the Penguin Centre will get permission to breed their captive penguins before it's too late!
  After all that learning and watching the other penguins eat yummy pilchards I was very hungry so we went and had lunch.  Jess and I had fish and chips and Mr Smart had a chicken pot pie.  Once we'd eaten we were ready to tackle the rest of the island.  You can walk right around it, or if you're lucky like me, be carried around it in a handbag or jacket!  At the beginning of the walk there is a very impressive pile of granite boulders.

  We walked from there to a boardwalk platform and we could look further out to sea and I could see another even smaller island.  It turns out that it is called Seal Rock, and it's where all the nasty fur seals live.  Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done about there being too many fur seals as they're a protected species too.  The view of the side of Granite Island from up there was very pretty though.

  There were a lot of very cool looking granite formations on the walk, as well as interesting birds and plants.  Jess and Mr Smart had a big laugh at this rock in particular.  They both giggled and said it looked like Boba Fett, but I didn't know who that was.

  We met lots of other visitors during the day.  There were lots of other tourists and everyone was running around and taking pictures.  Jess and Mr Smart took photos of other people for them and they swapped back and took photos of us!  It's very nice that everyone is so happy and friendly when they are visiting new places.  When we had nearly got all the way around to the start again, Mr Smart spotted a new spider web glistening in the sunshine.

  One of the reasons that I like living with Mr Smart so much is that he is so kind to animals.  Even though he doesn't really love big spiders, he still won't ever hurt them.  This spider was going around and around, getting closer and closer to the middle of his web.  He was nearly finished and ready for fly-catching in the evening.

  It was a lovely walk around the island and we headed back over the causeway in the sunshine, on a much more crowded tram!  We wanted to do a few little things before we headed back to Granite Island in the evening for our night time penguin tour!

  When we got back to Victor Harbor, Jess noticed a pair of camels on the beach.  I was pretty hesitant, and Mr Smart took some convincing, but Jess could not be dissuaded. She's always wanted to learn to ride a camel, and though a camel ride is not quite learning, it's at least a step in the right direction.  I was very nervous but I went along for the ride too.  Jess and I went on a female camel called Patty and Mr Smart was ahead of us on a larger male camel called Teddy.
  It was a very funny feeling as the camels got up and down.  They get up with their back legs first so you nearly get thrown off over the front and then they sit down front legs first so it nearly happens again!  Patty was very funny, after she had sat down she wiggled her big camel-butt and Jess nearly flew off sideways!  It was a fun mini-adventure though, between penguin-based activities.

   In what seemed like no time at all, the sun was setting and it was time to walk back over the causeway to have our night time penguin tour.  While we were walking over we stopped to take pictures of the sunset and a nice lady coming the other way stopped and took a family portrait for us.

  When we got to the island, I got to see a sign that made me clap and cheer.  We had missed seeing it when we came over on the tram.

  We met our tour group for the evening at the Penguin Centre, and we got to see Joyce again as she was our guide for the night.  It was nice to get to see her again.  We did get to hear a lot of the same information as we had during the day, but we also got to hear a lot more anecdotes about Joyce's life with the penguins, which was fun.  She obviously loves us Little Blues very much.
  With the penguin colony getting so small there was a chance that we wouldn't see any wild penguins at all, but we did see one!  And Joyce showed us some of the burrows and nests that were in very very hard to reach places.  I don't think I will be so adventurous as to build my nest on a cliff face under a boardwalk!  Though that one was called 'The Penthouse' so it might be good for attracting the right kind of lady penguin one day when I'm older.  We did see other wildlife too, birds and possums.  The possums certainly weren't afraid or shy.

  After a long day of walking, Jess and Mr Smart were both very tired and very hungry.  There had not been time to eat dinner before the penguin tour and it was nearly eight o'clock by the time we had walked back over the causeway to Victor Harbor.  We went to a local Indian restaurant and had a pleasant meal together before we went home and collapsed into bed and fell asleep very quickly.
  Until tomorrow!
  Love from Pengi