Planning a Day on the Island Around the Phillip Island Penguin Parade

Two visitors to the same island have entirely different days, and the difference is the month. Here is how to build both of them, hour by hour, around a crossing that will not wait.

Why the day has to be planned backwards

Most day trips start with a departure time. This one starts with a sunset. The penguins cross at dusk, which moves from about 5:15pm in June to about 8:45pm in January, and the reserve asks you to be seated an hour before that. Everything else in the day has to fit in front of it.

That single constraint is why two visitors to the same island have completely different days. In winter you have four usable daylight hours before you need to be at Summerlands. In summer you have nine.

What closes before the penguins arrive?

Both of the island's other ticketed attractions, which is the trap. The Koala Conservation Reserve takes its last entry at 4.30pm and Churchill Island Heritage Farm at 4pm. In June, when you need to be in your seat by a quarter past four, the two halves of the day barely overlap at all.

The free places have no such problem. The Nobbies boardwalks, Cape Woolamai and the beaches are open whenever there is light, which makes them the natural late-afternoon stop in winter and the natural filler in summer.

How much time does each place actually need?

• Churchill Island: an hour to ninety minutes, more if the farm demonstrations are running.
• Koala Conservation Reserve: an hour on the two boardwalks.
• Cowes: an hour for lunch, longer if you want the beach.
• Cape Woolamai: two to three hours for the full circuit walk, or twenty minutes for the surf beach.
• The Nobbies: forty-five minutes on the boardwalks.
• The Penguin Parade: three hours, gate to car park.

Add them up and the island is comfortably a two-day destination. On one day you are choosing three of those, and the choice is made for you by the month.

A winter day, hour by hour

Leave Melbourne at eight. You will be over the bridge by ten, which puts Churchill Island first — it is three kilometres past Newhaven and the farm demonstrations run through the morning. Lunch in Cowes at midday, then the Koala Conservation Reserve at one, when the boardwalks are quiet.

By half past two you have an hour spare, and The Nobbies is the right place to spend it: the light is low, the seal colony is out on the rocks, and it is ten minutes from the reserve. Be at the Penguin Parade by a quarter past four, seated, layered up. Out by six, and home for a late dinner.

A summer day, hour by hour

You can leave at half past nine and still have more daylight than you know what to do with. Churchill Island late morning, Cowes for a long lunch, the koalas mid-afternoon, and then the part a winter day cannot fit: Cape Woolamai, where a two-hour circuit takes you along the cliffs to the granite stacks at the tip.

That still leaves time for The Nobbies before you need to be at the reserve by a quarter to eight. The cost is the finish: the crossing ends around ten and you are back in the city near midnight.

Where should you eat?

Cowes, and earlier than you think. It is the island's main town, it has the real choice of food, and almost every coach day stops there for an hour before the crossing. Travellers who arrived after dark in the quieter months have found a good deal of it already shut.

At the reserve itself the Visitor Centre cafe opens at 12pm and is busiest in the hour before the birds arrive. It is cashless, as the whole reserve is. Churchill Island has a farm cafe from ten, which is the best mid-morning option on the island.

What does a coach day fit in instead?

A tour builds a slightly different day, because it is solving the same clock with a fixed vehicle. Most full-day fares put one wildlife park in — Moonlit Sanctuary at Pearcedale on the way down, or the Koala Conservation Reserve on the island — then a coastal stop, then an hour in Cowes, then the crossing.

What you lose is Churchill Island, which no tour on this sheet visits, and Cape Woolamai, which only the walking tour includes. What you gain is not driving two hours home in the dark. Choosing a tour sets out which fare buys which stops.

Can you fit the Grand Prix Circuit in?

Yes, and almost nobody does. The circuit sits between Cowes and the Nobbies with its own visitor centre, guided track tours and a go-kart track on a scale model of the course. It is open through the day when no race meeting is on.

Slot it in place of the koalas if motorsport is more your thing than marsupials, or in place of Cape Woolamai on a summer afternoon. Things to do near the parade has the rest of the island's options.

What about a two-day version?

It is the version the island deserves. Day one: arrive late morning, Churchill Island, Cowes, the koalas, the crossing, and a bed fifteen minutes away. Day two: Cape Woolamai in the morning while the light is good, The Nobbies boardwalks, San Remo for the pelican feeding at noon, and home in daylight.

It removes the two-hour drive back to Melbourne after a long evening, which is the one part of a Phillip Island day nobody enjoys, and it turns three rushed stops into six unhurried ones.

What is worth seeing on the way down?

The drive from Melbourne is two hours of highway, and two places on it are worth building into the plan rather than passing. Moonlit Sanctuary at Pearcedale, about halfway, is the wildlife park most coach days include: kangaroos and wallabies you can feed, koalas, dingoes, a Tasmanian devil, and a guided walk on most tours. It is open through the day and it is not on the island, which surprises a good many people.

San Remo, just before the bridge, is the other. The pelican feeding on the jetty runs every day at noon, which fits a winter departure far better than a summer one, and the fish and chips there have a following. Ten minutes, and it marks the point where the drive turns into the trip.

Maru Koala and Animal Park at Grantville, a little earlier on the Bass Highway, is the third option and the one a single tour here uses. If your day already includes the Koala Conservation Reserve on the island, skip it; two koala parks in one day is one too many.

How do you handle the drive home?

Deliberately, and it is worth a few minutes of planning. You leave the car park at the end of a long evening into a slow queue, then two hours of highway, much of it unlit.

Three ways to make it better. Eat properly in Cowes before the crossing rather than waiting until you are back in the city at eleven. Fill the tank on the mainland on the way down, so you are not looking for a service station at ten at night. And if there are two drivers, agree before you set off which one is driving back.

Or remove it entirely: a coach day means somebody else does all of that, and a night in Cowes means nobody does it at all. Both cost money, and on a summer date both are worth it.

The single mistake to avoid

Leaving the reserve the moment the crossing finishes. The birds keep walking, up through the dunes on their own paths, and the boardwalks run over the top of them. Stand still for ten minutes after the beach empties and penguins pass within a metre of you, calling.

Everyone has access to that whatever ticket they hold, and a great many travellers describe it as the part of the evening they remember. The car park queue will still be there in ten minutes; the birds will not.

Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tours lists every tour with the stops it makes and the hours it takes, so you can see which one builds the day above and which one builds a different one.

Frequently asked questions

Tours that build this day for you

Phillip Island: Penguins and Wildlife Full-Day Tour

Hotel pickup, the Koala Conservation Reserve, Cowes, The Nobbies and the crossing, with commentary in eleven languages.

From $113 per person

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Phillip Island Penguin Parade and Koalas Tour from Melbourne

The same shape at the cheaper end, with the koala reserve and general viewing in the fare.

From $131 per person

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Phillip Island: Golden Hour Penguin Express Tour with Island Pickup

For anyone already on the island: an evening loop from your own accommodation, without the drive at either end.

From $94 per person

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