Puffing Billy and Phillip Island Penguin Parade tours pair a 1900s steam railway through the Dandenong Ranges with the evening penguin crossing on the island, in two opposite directions from Melbourne on the same very long day.
An eleven-hour day pairing the steam railway from Belgrave to Lakeside with Emerald Lake, The Nobbies and the crossing. Entry to all three is in the fare, on a coach capped at 24.
From $157 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Two half-day tours joined: the railway and Emerald Lake in the morning, free time in Melbourne, then the island in the afternoon. Hotel pickup, and fourteen to seventeen hours in total.
From $178 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Every fare here includes admission to the Penguin Parade, and each card says which viewing area it buys at the gate.
Check availabilityYou get two of Victoria's best-known attractions in one day, in opposite directions from Melbourne. Puffing Billy is a narrow-gauge steam railway through the Dandenong Ranges east of the city. The Penguin Parade is ninety minutes south-east on the coast. You ride the railway in the morning and reach the island in the evening.
These days exist because both places are hard for you to reach without a car, and neither fills a day on its own. Bolted together they make a long one: eleven hours on the shorter fare, and up to seventeen if you take the longer.
Neither the railway nor the reserve is easy for you to reach by public transport, and the Penguin Parade has none at all after dark. One fare handles both, in the right order, timed around a crossing that moves through the year.
You are on a genuine 1900s steam railway, not a heritage ride around a car park: open-sided carriages, a timber trestle bridge, fern gullies on both sides. Travellers who booked it for the penguins routinely write about the train first.
Both fares include Emerald Lake Park at the end of the railway line, so your morning gets a proper stop rather than a turnaround.
If you have three days in Melbourne, doing these separately costs you two of them. That is the real argument, and it is a good one.
The honest comparison is hours against breadth.
| Combination day | Phillip Island only | |
|---|---|---|
| Total hours | Eleven to seventeen | Eight to fourteen |
| Attractions | Steam railway, Emerald Lake, the island, the crossing | A wildlife park, the coast, the crossing |
| Directions travelled | East to the Dandenongs, then south-east | South-east only |
| Time on the island | An afternoon | An afternoon, or a full day |
| Fares from | $157 per person | $95 per person |
| Best for | Short trips, railway enthusiasts, families with older children | Anyone who wants the island rather than the itinerary |
What you give up is depth on the island. A combination day reaches Phillip Island in the afternoon, so the koala reserve and Churchill Island are usually out and the day is The Nobbies, Cowes and the crossing.
Start early and expect to finish late. The shorter fare runs about eleven hours. The longer one joins a morning half-day to an afternoon one, with free time in Melbourne between them, and runs fourteen to seventeen — returning between nine at night and midnight depending on the season.
Both include entry to the railway, to Emerald Lake and to the Penguin Parade at general viewing. Neither includes meals, so eat in Melbourne between the legs on the longer fare and in Cowes on the shorter one.
Useful tip. Book a winter or shoulder date if you can. The same itinerary that finishes near midnight in January is over by half past nine in June, because the crossing moves with the sunset — the arrival-times page has the figure for every month.
Both fares include the railway journey, Emerald Lake, general admission to the crossing, an air-conditioned coach and a live guide. One includes The Nobbies explicitly; both pass it. Neither includes food, and one names bottled water as excluded.
What you do not get is a wildlife park. If koalas are on your list, a wildlife tour puts one in the fare instead of the railway.
Families with young children. Fourteen to seventeen hours is a great deal to ask of a small child, and the evening finishes in the dark two hours from the city. An afternoon tour, or a winter date, is the kinder version.
Anyone whose main interest is the wildlife. This day trades the koala reserve for a railway, and if the animals are the point then that is the wrong trade. The tour options page compares the formats on what each one includes.
Anyone travelling in midsummer who dislikes late nights. A January combination day gets back to Melbourne around midnight. The same fare in June is home before ten.
Two of Victoria's best-known days out, in one fare, with the driving handled.
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