Sven, Cat, Jason and I had a late start with French toast for breakfast. After considering our options we decided to go to Phillip Island. We drove for about 1½ hours (mostly south) to get there. The first hour or so was on semi-major roads (they don't seems to have so many big highways here), followed by mostly farmland dotted with tall eucalyptus trees. We saw plenty of cows and sheep. Catherine and I talked for a long time about MRA (now Initiatives of Change or IC). They do a lot of work towards building relationships, resolving conflicts, and working on tough issues, particularly racism, bringing together people on "opposite" sides of an issue, which is somewhat similar to the work I've been doing in co-counseling.

The main tourist attraction at Phillip Island is the "Penguin Parade" when the "Fairy" penguins return from the sea each day and run up the beach to their burrows on land. Once we got to the island we toured the penguin information center and even saw some penguins in their burrows. It was molting season when they double their weight to 2 kilograms and spend 17 days in their burrows molting. Once there was an oil spill on the coast there, and the penguins had to be washed with detergents that ruined the natural oils in their feathers that keep them warm. They had a campaign to get people to knit and send in penguin sized sweaters for them to wear for protection. It is sad that they needed them, but I would have loved to see a couple of penguins in their sweaters!

After the center we took a long walk out along the coast which was beautiful-lots of crashing waves, blue-green ocean, and big rocks. We even saw some seals from far away through the binoculars. If they hadn't been moving, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart from the rocks. After the walk we went for fish and chips at a local place. They had flake fish there, which is gummy shark. It was quite good. Due to a Phillip Island Biker convention there were tons of people in leather with us eating fish and chips.

After dinner we returned to the "Penguin Parade" area to watch the hundreds of penguins return for the night. They are small little dudes-12" tall, and black and white with small wings, and are the smallest penguins in the world. They wiggle when they walk and like to travel in packs on land. They were really funny coming into shore. Sometimes they would be indecisive and run back into the water after having already come out. They would stand around until a large enough group formed and then they'd head up the beach together. Sometimes one would be behind and then would run at full throttle with its head towards the ground until it caught up with the rest. After you watch them from the shore you can see where they go back to their burrows. They make a lot of noise and stand around outside of their burrows for a while before going inside.