Unusual guest goes home

A LONELY royal penguin was a long way from home and unable to swim when he was rescued by wildlife carers at Princetown recently.

There are thousands of royal penguins on Macquarie Island, between Tasmania and Antarctica, the only known place the penguins breed, but only three have ever been seen in Victoria.

A TAFE group found the two-year-old penguin in March and it was taken to the Wallaby Creek Wildlife Shelter at Peterborough run by Annie Fraser.

Mrs Fraser cared for the penguin for about a month while he moulted and gained enough weight to make the journey back to Macquarie Island.