Islands in the Stream and Penguins

Sorry there was no post last night. We didn’t get back to the room til after midnight..I’ll start from the beginning…the photo above is off the starboard side( that’s the right side to all you landlubbers). More islands off the coast of Australia,, Luckily we decided not to take the tender and a shuttle bus into the town. They had a power outage and only places with generators were open. Even the Koala Sanctuary was closed so we’re glad we didn’t book it. We had an early dinner in the room, then went to the theater to meet at our designated time of 6:15. Then we took a 20 minute tender ride to the pier, and boarded a bus to take us to the Penguin place. The ship’s crew did an amazing job of getting over 800 people off the ship, on the buses, taking us to the Preserve and getting us back to the tender and back to the ship. What an undertaking that was!
‘We had ample time to browse the shops and exhibits. We didn’t realize it was a 1/2 mile walk to the beach and the bleachers. We saw wallaby’s and a local goose on the way, not realizing we were walking past the penguin’s nesting grounds. We found seats towards the back, along the side. One of our friends had told us they would be everywhere , so it didn’t matter where we sat. So we sat and waited, and waited, and waited. We got there just at sunset, around 8:00. They announced there would be NO photography after 8:30. So you’ll see beach photos, but no live penguin shots. It was getting pretty cold. Bunny came prepared with a puffy down coat and gloves. I had 4 layers on plus my Viking jacket and I still was cold by the end of the evening. Finally about 9:10, we saw some little beings waddling up the beach. They only came a few at a time, not in a great wave, as we expected. As soon as one group came up the beach, we started walking along the boardwalk.. Then we saw lots of them. They are only about 12 inches tall, if that, blue on the back and white on the front. They make a little chirping noise. We kept seeing more as we walked along. One little guy walked along the fence with us for a bit..He was watching us while we watched him..who in the cage? We were!
We finished the board walk and after a stop at the loo, we got on a bus to go back to the port. Our driver said he had to dim the coach lights so we didn’t blind some wallaby’s along the road. We did see a couple road kill along the way home. They let us stay warm on the buses until it was our turn to board the tender. Thank heavens. Speaking of heavens, we were in the front of the tender where there was a hatch in the roof, which was open. We got a good look at the stars and the Milky Way. I’m not up on constellations, but I heard Orion, Southern Cross and Milky Way. It was beautiful. Then as we got back on the ship, we went to the World Cafe where they had beef or turkey sandwiches, fries, soup and cocoa. It hit the spot. We pretty much crashed when we got to the room.
‘Photos: Bunny got some penguin photos off the website , so I added a couple. The bottom photo is penguins for sale with sweaters. There is a 90 year old man who knits the sweaters for the penguins who are sick or injured. Pretty special.