I can hardly contain myself tonight at what we have seen today but I won't spoil it all for you by telling you just yet! We have had an excellent day - Steve thinks it is the best day of the holiday so far and I think I agree as it is hard to beat wildlife sightings!

We had one more place we wanted to visit before leaving Phillip Island, which was The Nobbies! These are a set of rocks off the far west point of the island, just beyond the place we saw the penguins last night. It was a beautiful day weatherwise and a beautiful bit of coast. The sea was crashing onto the flat topped rocks and pouring off in waterfalls. We walked along the boardwalks and as we did so we were surprised to see some of the boxes which the penguins use as burrows. We hadn't expected to see them there for some reason, though it is only a little further along the coast. Anyway we were also delighted to be able to see some of the penguins in their burrows and to photograph them!

The Nobbies

Little Penguins under the boardwalk

We spent rather longer at The Nobbies than we intended and so we then had to get a move on to our next overnight stop near Wilson's Promontory. This is a National Park and wilderness area on the south coast, further east than Phillip Island. Our accommodation is a delightful little cottage, just outside the park and with lovely views across to the sea and beyond to the Prom - as it is known. We are in the middle of nowhere and it is very quiet and now very dark!

Having settled in we decided we must go and explore the Prom, given the excellent weather and our short stay. We drove down the 25 miles of road to the only settlement in the park, stopping at several beaches on the way. The first beach was Whisky Bay - a beautiful sandy beach with huge boulders at each end, making for good photo opportunities! It was almost deserted too. We walked from there to the next beach and back again. Then we called in at Squeaky Beach. Now you may remember we went to a beach in NZ which was supposed to be squeaky and it was a little bit - but this one was really squeaky! Not only that but it was beautiful too!

Whisky Bay, Wilson's Promontory

After this we stopped and had an icecream in Tidal River, the settlement at the end of the road. I say settlement because really it is only a campground with a shop and visitor centre. It was just as well we had something to eat, because on our return journey back down the Prom we decided to stop and do the Wildlife Walk. Despite having had a great day, this proved to be the absolute highlight!

Our walk started with close sightings of kangaroos just near the car park and eventually we must have seen at least 30. That was good but kangaroos are not difficult to spot and we have seen them in many places in Australia. About half way round the walk we spotted some emus in the distance. We were thrilled by this as we have never seen them in the wild before. Eventually, as we watched, they came a little closer - probably close enough, as I'm not sure I'd want to be too close to these enormous birds! To crown everything though, we disturbed a wombat a little further on! He beetled off fairly quickly but we got a good view and some video! You can imagine how pleased we were with all this! Australian wildlife is great!

Eastern Grey kangaroo

Two emus

Another Eastern Grey

As we finished our walk, a flock of black cockatoos flew over. Appropriately enough we are staying at Black Cockatoo Cottages! It was gone 7.30 by the time we got back for our dinner and we have since been doing our best to get our blogs up to date with WiFi only available down the drive!