Little Penguin parade

I had already seen the world's littlest penguins on kangaroo island and on the great ocean road, and I will probably see them again in Tasmania, but i still was very excited to go the little penguin parade on Philip Island to see the largest colony in Australia. On KI we only saw about 5 of them and on the GOR we were so high up the penguins looked more like beetles than birds. I went with Autopia tours and our first stop was at a wildlife sanctuary. I must say I am no longer excited by kangaroos or koalas but this place had a baby wombat and an albino kangaroo so it was worth going to. Next we went to the penguin visitor center where there was a boardwalk around the ocean. I decided to go for a walkdown it even though there were about a million seagulls swarming and signs that said don't feed them because they attack. I decided that since I had no food I would be safe. I had just stopped and taken a picture of them and remarked to myself that it looked very Hitchcockian when I was attacked. A baby seagull was on the path and the birds must have thought i was standing to close to it because several swooped down out of the sky towards my head screeching at me. I ducked and hit my head on the boardwalk trying to protect myself. I then ran back to my group who were not faring much better. One woman had her finger bit by a seagull trying to steal her biscuit and another had been pooped on. Luckily we soon all boarded back in the bus for pizza and then onwards to see the penguins. Sadly you are not allowed to take any pictures of them because they are blinded by the lights so I bought a few postcards and went and sat on the beach to wait. Apparently this is Australia's second biggest tourist attraction after the Great Barrier Reef so like Uluru at sunset I was surrounded by hundreds of other tourists. The penguins wait until sunset and then cluster together in the waves. They send one penguin out first and if he is not eaten by a bird he runs back into the water and the little penguins make their way onto the beach and then to their burrows. For about thirty minutes I watched a few clusters of penguins get swept onto the beach and then swept back into the water a few times before they finally began scurrying up to their burrows. After that I walked around on the boardwalks and watched penguins mating and walking around. There were lots of school children very excited by the mating penguins and I even heard one teacher say that they would go see how many birds they could find "doing it." After about an hour we all boarded our tour buses and began the 2 hour drive back to Melbourne.
I am staying at a small hostel in old mansion in St. Kilda, a beachside suburb of Melbourne. St Kilda has plenty of funky shops, cafes, restaurants, and cake shops. It also has an old amusement park and a vegetarian curry place that I am obsessed with. I have already eaten there 3 times. My first day here it was cold and rainy so I saw a movie (Michael Clayton, very good) and then walked to the Victoria markets which were supposedly open Wednesday nights. When i arrived the markets were completely empty and I sadly walked back to the tram in the rain and hurried to my curry place. Yesterday i walked around the city and found myself at the Australian center for Moving Images. They had a display by a performance artist who made videos. Most were too weird for me, but there was one that was 4 screens of different films with people singing, dancing, and playing instruments that i enjoyed. There was also one where you stood in the middle of 4 screens that had been synchronized with scenes from 4 different movies(I only remember terminator 2 and Pulp Fiction) that involved shootouts. I must have arrived at the end because as I stood there 4 gunmen aimed at me and began shooting. It was a bit too realistic so I went back to the safety of the musical exhibit.
I just spent a while putting the rest of my pictures on facebook so I will add some links to them soon. Happy weekend!