From time to time we marvel at how close we are to the Antarctic. Here in Melbourne we are closer to the South Pole than we have ever lived to the North Pole. As evidence of our proximity to the World’s bottom, the southern coast of Australia is home to the world’s smallest penguin. Most of these penguins reside on islands off the mainland, but one exception are the St. Kilda Little "Fairy" Penguins,which not only make their homes on the continent, but a mere 15 minutes from Downtown Melbourne (about 15 minutes from our house). We visited them recently during a warm winter evening because like every other interesting animal in Australia, the best time to see them is at dusk. (Ironically, not because they're coming out to eat like all the other animals, but because they're coming back to their burrows after a day out in the water.) We spent a few minutes playing footy on the beach until the sky looked like this:
Then we walked down the pier and onto the breakwater where, from a wooden platform (no child-safe rail here - Steph was totally loving that) we could see the penguins swim up to the rocks in which they nest.
The penguins at St. Kilda do not waddle up on the sand like they do on the more popular (for tourists) Philip Island, but hop from rock to rock. But they're a lot closer and cheaper - just right for the Fairbanks family.
Supposedly, the penguins do not like camera flashes so most of our pictures look like this:
But it is impossible to remember to turn the flash off for every photograph.
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