Seeing the Phillip Island Penguin Parade Without a Tour: Driving, Parking and the Transport Problem

The most useful thing anybody can tell you about the Penguin Parade is that no bus goes to it. What that leaves, what each option costs, and when doing it yourself is clearly the better call.

The one fact that decides this

Phillip Island Nature Parks puts it plainly on its own visiting page: the V/Line bus does not go to the Penguin Parade, and there are no return buses to Melbourne at the conclusion of the Penguin Parade. Public transport is limited on the island generally, and nothing at all runs between its parks.

So the honest answer to “can I do this myself?” is a question rather than a yes or no. Do you have a car for the evening? If yes, this guide is for you. If no, skip to the last section, because the only thing that gets you home is a tour.

What does the self-drive version actually cost?

Admission is A$34 an adult, A$17 a child aged four to fifteen, or A$85 for a family of four, and parking is free. Add fuel for about 280 kilometres return and whatever you eat. For two adults that is roughly A$68 plus the drive, against two coach fares from $95 each.

For a family of four the gap is wider still: A$85 at the gate against four coach seats. Driving yourself is not marginally cheaper; it is a different order of cost. What it buys instead of comfort is control over the clock.

How long does the drive really take?

The reserve puts Melbourne to the bridge at 90 to 120 minutes and then asks for a further 20 minutes to the Penguin Parade. Call it two and a half hours each way with traffic, and note that the return happens in the dark on a road that is unlit in stretches.

There is one more piece nobody mentions until they are sitting in it. Several thousand people leave the car park within about fifteen minutes of each other, and it takes a steady twenty minutes to get out. That is part of the journey, not an extra.

Can you get there by public transport?

To Cowes, yes. The V/Line coach runs from Melbourne and stops at Grantville, Corinella, Bass, San Remo, Newhaven and Cowes. There is also a passenger ferry from Stony Point, at the end of a suburban rail line, across to Cowes in about half an hour.

To the Penguin Parade, no. Cowes is twelve kilometres short of the reserve and nothing covers that leg on a timetable. Phillip Island Taxis run transfers on the island, which solves the last twelve kilometres if you are staying locally and have booked one in advance.

Is driving yourself better?

For three kinds of traveller, clearly yes.

• Families. One ticket price against four fares, and a car you can leave in when a child has had enough.
• Anyone staying on the island. Fifteen minutes from Cowes, and the whole logic of a Melbourne tour disappears.
• Anyone who wants the daylight hours their own way. Churchill Island is on no tour here, and Cape Woolamai is on one.

For everyone else the trade is two hours of night driving against a coach fare, and plenty of people who have done both say the tour was worth it for the drive home alone.

Is the road hard to drive?

No. It is dual carriageway almost the whole way: the M1 out of the city, the South Gippsland Highway towards Cranbourne and Lang Lang, then the Bass Highway to San Remo. The only single-lane stretch that matters is the last run west along the island, and it is a good road.

Two things catch people out rather than the driving itself. The last stretch carries everybody in the same direction at the same hour, so the twenty minutes from the bridge can become thirty on a summer evening. And the return is genuinely dark, with long unlit sections, at the end of a day that started early.

What do you have to organise yourself?

1. The ticket. Bookings are essential and every area is capped. Book as soon as you have a date.
2. The viewing area. General at A$34, Penguins Plus at A$93, Underground at A$103. Decide before you pay.
3. The timing. Be on site an hour before the published arrival time for your month.
4. The daylight hours. The koalas close at 4.30pm and Churchill Island at 4pm.
5. Food. Cowes, early. The reserve's cafe is busy and cashless.

What you give up by not taking a guide

Two things, and both are real. The first is commentary: on a coach day somebody talks you through the island, the colony and the species for two hours each way, and the reviews that name a guide are the warmest ones in the pool.

The second is the wildlife park. Most full-day fares include one, and paying separately for the Koala Conservation Reserve at A$17.50 an adult narrows the price gap between driving and being driven.

Does a tour ever beat a car on cost?

For a solo traveller, close to it. One coach seat from $95 against fuel for 280 kilometres, an A$34 ticket and a wildlife park bought separately is not the gulf it looks like — and the coach fare includes somebody else doing the driving.

For two or more it does not. The maths runs the other way quickly, and a family of four is far better off in a car. That is the honest position, and it is why this site lists the reserve's own ticket alongside the tours rather than burying it.

Where do you park, and how bad is the exit?

Parking is free and it is at the Visitor Centre itself, a few hundred metres from the viewing areas along sealed path and boardwalk. There is no need to book a space and no charge, which is unusual enough at a major attraction to be worth saying.

Getting out is the part to plan for. Several thousand people walk back to the car park inside about fifteen minutes of each other, and it takes a steady twenty minutes to clear it. That is not a queue you can beat by leaving early, because leaving early means missing the boardwalk walk-up, which is the best ten minutes of the night.

Treat it as part of the drive. If you are heading back to Melbourne, you are not really on the road until about half an hour after the crossing ends.

What should you book before you leave home?

Three things, in this order, and all of them ahead of the day.

1. The Penguin Parade ticket. Bookings are essential, every area is capped, and summer dates go a month out.
2. The viewing area. Decide between general at A$34 and Penguins Plus at A$93 before you pay, because upgrading later is unreliable.
3. Anywhere you want to be in the afternoon. The Koala Conservation Reserve and Churchill Island both close in the late afternoon and both sell a discounted pass with the parade.

Everything else — fuel, food, a jumper you will regret not packing — can be handled on the day. The tickets cannot.

What if you want the best of both?

Two hybrids work well. Drive down in the morning, spend the day on the island at your own pace, and buy the Penguins Plus ticket with the money a tour would have cost. Or stay a night in Cowes and take the island-pickup tour for the evening, so somebody else handles the dark road back from Summerlands and you keep your car for the daylight.

Phillip Island Penguin Parade tickets sit alongside the reserve's own ticket on Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tours, so the comparison is on one page rather than across two websites.

Frequently asked questions

If you would rather somebody else drove

Phillip Island Penguin Parade: General Viewing Ticket

The reserve's own admission, the whole self-drive evening in one booking.

From $24 per person

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From Melbourne: Penguin Parade Afternoon Tour

The shortest coach from the city: a meeting point on Flinders Street, The Nobbies, and the crossing.

From $97 per person

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Phillip Island Penguin Parade, Brighton Bathing Boxes and Wildlife Park Tour

A ten-hour day capped at ten travellers, with a wildlife park and the Brighton bathing boxes on the way down.

From $116 per person

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