So remember the beach last week?  The warm sun, the cold drinks, the complete defrost from all things Asia?  Yea, apparently not all of Australia is like that.   Especially not when you actually drive about as far South as you can and then take a ferry to go even further out in the Southern Ocean.  Yes, Kangaroo Island in November is a bit chilly. [Ed. note: not too chilly. Just a wee bit.] Upside?  Penguins.

A few colonies of penguins got lost from their Antarctica cousins ten thousand years ago and adapted themselves to live in the mostly (or at least currently) snowless land of koalas and kangaroos.   Lucky for us, since the island wasn’t littered with wildlife as we anticipated so perhaps my husband would cheer up if we were able to find one of his favorite funny little creatures instead.  [Ed. note: seriously – penguins are my second favorite animal in the world. They were the reason I thought we should go to Antarctica a couple of years ago.]

The fairy penguins living here apparently are nocturnal, so our tour options were either 8:30 pm or 9:30 pm.  Considering everything on this island shut around 5 pm including most restaurants and the penguin area is almost 2 hours drive from our little farmhouse, we opted for the early tour and a lot of caffeine afterwards.  The tour was led by a peculiar man who seemed a bit surprised that people were actually here to take the tour. [Ed. note: he really was an odd bloke.]  He explained to everyone that most of the chicks were gone so we might not see anything.  Salesmanship was not his forte.  

We pressed on, because if we learned anything on this island it was that it pays to keep trying and maybe something would play along with our foolish antics…and foolish it was.   Unlike our week or two in Antarctica a few years ago, the colonies of 80,000 penguins up and down every coastline were not the norm here.   We had to physically hunt.  We were armed with binoculars and zoom lenses and red light flashlights (so forgive the photo quality…).

But we found them!  [Ed. note: heck yeah we did! Fourth species of penguin – located!!] A handful of cuddly little blue fin tipped fairy penguins hiding along the rocks of the coast.   They were a lot quieter than Antarctic penguins…and they smelled a lot better.   But they were the same hilarious little creatures surrying across the rocks and bumping into one another.   Finally, a total wildlife win on Kangaroo Island!