Day 21

The next morning we went to a Koala sanctuary where we seen some grey and the larger brown Koalas quite close up. After our tuition on what to look for by our cousins Chris and Heather we were able to spot them quite easily. Some of them were quite close to the purpose built walk ways so it was good to get a close look at them. After that we decide to play a game of crazy golf - which was so funny since there was only 3 of us sticking to the rules (If James isn't good at something there is no chance he is going to pretend he is sticking to the rules!). It was great fun - especially at the holes where we couldn't work out where the start and end was!

Kath and myself had booked a treatment at a spa in town so we left the boys playing crazy golf and went to pamper ourselves. Kath had a pregnancy massage and I had a hot stone massage which was wonderful. We enjoyed our couple of hours of spoiling ourselves before returning to pick up Thomas and James. They had abandoned the crazy golf and went into the brewery next door!

We went back to Cowes to have lunch then wonder around the town. The town was very quiet but we still managed to find some silly souvenirs!

That night we drove to the South of the island to see the fairy penguins - one of the smallest penguins in the world! We had booked special seats that allowed us to have a great view of where the penguins would arrive on the beach. Every evening at around 6.30pm the little penguins would return to the beach after fishing for up to a few weeks. They would gather into little groups in the sea and they would come ashore together. There was a guide there that told us all about them, and how they survived in their habitats. She also told us that we would hear them before seeing them. By 6.30pm it was quite dark so there was some low level lights on the deck that we were sitting on so we could see some of the penguins! We sat patiently with our popcorn and hot chocolate and at 6.30 we started to hear a squawking noise from the edge of the sea. Then we could see some little penguins gathering and starting to waddle towards their burrows which were situated below our deck and in the hillside beside us. They moved in groups as it was safer for them to prevent attacks by predators. They were lovely little things and they were quite noisy once they started trying to find their nests! By 7pm there was hundreds of tiny penguins rushing out of the sea and across the beach. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos so that was a shame as they were so close I could have picked one up if I was allowed!!

We then went back to the brewery that James and Thomas found earlier in the day to have dinner in the evening. It was lovely but there was too much food!!