Phillip Island is about 140km south east of Melbourne, joined to the mainland since the 1950s by a bridge at the island’s eastern end. After the Great Ocean Road, it is probably the most famous attraction close to Melbourne. It is most famous for its penguins, and for having the largest fur seal colony in Australia. The seal colony’s presence means that Australia’s largest White Pointers (Great White sharks) are found in the waters here. In the “Isle of Wight” pub in the main town, Cowes, shows photos of one of the largest White Pointers ever caught in Australian waters. 6.4 metres, around 20ft long.
The penguins can only be seen at dusk, so we stopped off on the way at Maru Wildlife Park, which speacialises in caring for orphaned wildlife (usually due to cars running them over), and releasing them back into the wild when they are able to hunt for themselves. We saw at close quarters a wombat, koalas, tasmanian devils, emus and also ended up hand feeding wallabies and kangaroos.Â
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Hand fed wallabies and kangaroos once before, near Port Douglas north of Cairns about 6 years ago, but this was the first time I’d seen a wombat and tasmanian devils. Also, got a lot closer to koalas than I’ve ever managed before (usually the trees were too high 
). All in all we spent a fun few hours there.
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Then it was off to Phillip Island itself. First stop was Woolamai Beach. There was awesome surf here, and only hardy souls ventured into the water. I didn’t take bathers, but still got hit by an unexpectedly large wave and got soaked!
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There looked to be quite a rip, but it wasn’t great for surfing at the time we were there due to the onshore wind amongst other things.
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In fact, I didn’t see a single surfer at Woolamai Beach. I did however see quite a few just a few hundred metres around the coast from the seal colony a bit later on. Shark bait, every one of them!
The seal colony is actually on a rocky outcrop about 1km offshore from Phillip Island, so no photos unfortunately. There are telescopes available at an exorbitant $2 for those that don’t want to run the risk of the White Pointers by swimming over to the colony. This rocky outcrop is at the south western tip of the island, and the prevailing winds ensure it is pretty always close to storm force winds here - as you can probably tell from the spray of the sea in the photo below. It’s tiring just walking against it, so after a few photos we left for the shelter of the mini bus.Â
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After dinner in Cowes, under the photographic gaze of a 6.4m long dead white pointer hanging behind the bar, we drove to Summerland Beach. This is unfortunately the only place left on the island where a penguin colony still exists (there were once a dozen places on the island). These are fairy penguins, the smallest of the 7 penguin species known. There native predators are eagles, crows, dingos when on land, and at sea they are constantly at risk of being eaten by sharks. However, seals do not eat penguins, in spite of the massive size difference. These penguins have been tagged, and traced to get as far as Tasmania, 400km away out to sea. Quite incredible if you imagine these penguins are no more than a foot long (30cm), and generally only leave the nest a day at a time. Around daybreak these pairs of nesting adult penguins part company. One (not always female) will stay and guard the nest (eggs and/or chicks) from predators such as eagles or crows. The other will waddle down to the beach, sometimes more than 100m away from the nest, and hunt for food. Then, at sunset, the hunting penguins will emerge, will quite comical caution, out of the surf of the beach. They will tend to stick together, in groups of around 10, and try to cross the beach to the nests in the grassy slopes at the back of the beach. They seem to stick together. Quite often, the penguin at the back of the group will panic, head back for the safety of the sea. On seeing this, the rest of the group already on the sand about to make a run for it, have 2nd thoughts, and end up rushing back to the safety of the sea. This can go on for a few attempts, before the complete group as a whole finally pluck up the courage to make a dash for their nests. These penguins are easily frightened, therefore I was unable to take photos of the penguins. This was banned a few years ago due to people ignoring the requests for them not to use flash photography. There are many such restrictions in place due to this being the only colony left on the island. Understandable.
Once the bridge was built to the Phillip Island, the penguins suddenly had a few extra predatory hazards to overcome, which is partly to blame for the loss of so many of the penguin colonies on Phillip Island. Foxes were now able to access the island for the first time, and penguins were now at risk from cars (well, more than previously when access was only via a ferry service). The Summerland Beach colony is therefore highly protected now, and the area around this beach is fenced in to stop the penguins accessing the road, and to keep other predators out. However, they still have to be wary of eagles and such like. Our guide told of seeing an eagle, just 2 weeks ago, swoop down in broad daylight and snatch a penguin chick from its nest!
