Philip Island and etc.

Looks like we forgot an adventure! (and a few other bits - like the fact that we made cookies and whoopie pies and Kate sold them from our driveway yesterday during the garage sale day in the neighborhood - made $20 - sold all of them in 1 hour! - and a cool helicopter training picture - I don't get to do the water stuff, just the paramedics get wet - so I watched from shore and took pictures)

A few weeks ago we went to Philip Island off Melbourne which is famous for huge motorcycle races on their speedway (one of which was going on the weekend we were there) and also for the fairy penguins that come ashore on a different part of the island. We took our seats in the bleachers at dusk and watched them raft into the beach and and waddle up to their burrows in the hillsides. They are about 15 inches high and come in in groups of 10-20 that they split up as they get into the trails that lead to the penguin burrows - like condos, really, minus the ridiculous condo association boards and rules that never let you host a proper party or really express your individuality in any way at all...  But I digress... we couldn't take pictures at night, but the next day there were some penguins under the boardwalk, so we took a picture of them. They can be out at sea fishing for days at a time and then come back to throw up dinner for the family (a concept that was not well-received by smaller members of our family). We took a cruise to a seal colony (Tess and Kate got a turn steering the boat), went to a chocolate factory (that had versions of famous artworks in chocolate, and yes, that's a waterfall of liquid chocolate behind us), saw the pelican feeding (he didn't eat the gull), went to 'Amazin' Things' that had a lot of cool illusions (and a slide that you drop vertically onto - awesome!), went to the market and a petting zoo, and spent lots of time on the trampoline at the farmstay. Oh yes, and we ate a lot of chocolate...