Penguin Party!!!

So what if a grown up gets super excited about penguins?! Have you see Happy feet? Or March of the Penguins? Well I have, and am proud to announce to the world that yes, I have a thing for penguins. Now come on, their cute little beady eyes, their little flightless wings, tubby bellies and the way they just waddle around, who can honestly say they don’t have a thing for penguins!

Did you know that penguins form monogamous pairs (how loyal!) for the breeding season? And unlike reality (sorry boys) BOTH the parents take it in turns to look after  the egg before it hatches while the other makes the trek across vast, icy wilderness to feed upon the fish and other small sea creatures in the ocean?

Ok, so penguin obsession now out in the open, I still decided to go under the alias –  ‘my nine month old niece would love to go visit the fishies at the Melbourne Aquarium, I’ll take her’  – and I did. I hadn’t been to the Melbourne Aquarium in years and years and was very excited to see how it had changed. So first things first; see the penguins. We paid for our entry and made a mad dash to the penguin exhibit. A replica of Antarctica, the animal enclosure was decked out with ice slides, a feeding area, lots of play area and a huge swimming pool that the penguins were shooting through like torpedoes! My niece was in awe of the waddling birds and we happily sat there together for three quarters of an hour, staring into the enclosure, oblivious to any of our other surroundings.

The Melbourne Aquarium had a lot more than just penguins though (although we wouldn’t have minded if it were just a penguin park). We spent the entire morning slowly making our way through the many exhibits. There was a touch and feel pool where we could put our fingers into slimy little sea anemones and hold star fish,  a section dedicated to the  Amazon River and similar environments (there was a poisonous dart frog who was an amazing black and yellow) and a huge tank filled with sharks, big fish and manta rays. If you were game enough you can even go for a dive with the toothy sharks…and I mean I totally would have but you know, my niece was with me and all…

All in all, a great day out (for big kids as well as real kids), there is even an Aquarium café where you can pit stop to refill bellies and have a drink…Steer clear of the fish and chips though…There is something very disturbing about ordering fried fishies at the biggest tank in Melbourne!!