Museum and penguins

Today started with a brisk morning walk to the Melbourne Museum.  This is a postmodern

award winning building built in 2001 and ets next to the Royal Ehibition Building at Carlton Gardens.  Right before we got to the museum were "ruins" all over the grass.  Interesting lawn decorations.

The museum houses a collection of all the varied cultures around Australia.  Melbourne is considered the culture capital of Australia. There is even a wooded forest inside.

Entrance

One of Australia's famous residents was a horse named Phar Lap.  He was a winner in all of his races - this was in the 30's.

Here he is - he was loved by all of his countryman.  He had a unique horizontal color change "marking" that encircled his body and shows in the above photo.

Luna Park is also in Melbourne.   Marty is sitting in one of the orginial moons.

Dinosaurs were also plentiful.

We made plans to leave the park in time to drive the 2 hours to Philip Island to see the Penguin Parade.  We were not allowed to take photos so these are photos of photos.  We got to the island and were dressed for the occasion.  However, no one had told us that the winds were 56 km/hr - so strong you could hardly stand up.  As a result we did not go out to watch the penguins until dusk.  We walked a board walk and saw their burrows all over and also a couple of wallabies.  We got into the bleacher seating and listened to the ranger tell us about the little penguins.  They are the world's littlest penguin and every day at sunset they emerge from the sea and waddle up the beach to their burrows in the dunes.  They have had people watch them since the 1920's so they are not bothered by us.  They come out of the sea - literally in waves - preen themselves and then in small groups go home after a day of fishing.  We saw a rabbit hopping around among them and at least 3 wallabies.  It was amazing to watch and such a treat to see these little animals in the wild.

Tonight there were 1065 penguins (about 983 the previous night)- we don't  know who or how they are counted - anyway that is what they claim.

They were to arrive at 20:50 (8:50), but they came a little early - who knows why.  We were glad with all of the wind.

Marching along.

This is what they looked like - so adorable.

So we were done with the parade and it is 10:00 or so.  Normally when we go to a night function Dale is the one that gets to drive home and if it is a ways (for example an ISU football game) Marty sleeps.  However, Marty is driving, Dale is telling her directions, it is very dark, we are driving on the left side of the road and only hope we can get back to Melbourne and our hotel.  Several prayers were said and the good Lord helped us get "home".  It was midnight, we were exhauted, but a good day.