Phillip Island Penguins

This is one of the great family activities – whether you have younger children or older ones. I mean, who doesn’t love a fairy penguin?

Visiting the Phillip Island Penguins is a detour you may take on the Melbourne to Sydney trip, or you will add it to your Mornington Peninsula tour. Either way, it is one of the great tourist attractions in Victoria.

Basically, head down the South Gippsland Highway until you hit Phillip Island (yes, it is that simple!) There’s plenty to see and do on Philip Island before the Big Show, so make sure you make time for it.

The Fairy Penguin Parade happens within the Phillip Island Nature Park. This is a self funding tourist attraction with the goal of animal conservation and research.

The parks include Seal Rocks and Cape Woolamai as well as the Nobbies Centre, where you can view seals, dolphins, and shark from the various lookouts. There is also the Koala Conservation Centre which is dedicated to koala research and conservation. This facility allows you to view koalas in their natural habitat via treetop boardwalks.

Summerland Beach is where the Fairy Penguin Parade happens, sunset is when. It starts with a trickle, the leaders start to emerge from the water and make their way up to their burrows, deep in the sand dunes.

After a while, the trickle becomes a flood, as hundreds of Fairy Penguins waddle their way up the beach.

Phillip Island is home to the largest Fairy Penguin colony in the world, and the development around this colony, while huge, is very sympathetic to nature and has achieved the amazing balance of letting as many people as possible experience the joy of seeing these delightful animals without affecting their environment.

This is one of the major tourist attractions in Victoria we highly recommend. You will be pleased to know that the money raised from this facility goes straight back into research, environment and education to protect these little guys.