Phillip Island Travel Guide
Phillip Island accommodation, Phillip Island activities and attractions, Phillip Island maps, transportation to and around Phillip Island - the ALL NEW Jasons Phillip Island Destination Travel Guide is your complete visitor guide for Phillip Island.
Phillip Island was discovered by George Bass just ten years after the arrival of the First Fleet, and named for the colony's first governor, Captain Arthur Phillip. Once a haunt of sealers and whalers, Phillip Island Nature Park is now a prime tourist destination attracting approximately 3.5 million visitors each year, most of whom come to view the nightly spectacle as thousands of the world's smallest penguins come ashore at Summerfield Beach. The rocks just off shore from Point Grant are home to Australia's largest colony of fur seals, and the exciting new Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre has been developed as a world-class ecological marine experience.
The island was surveyed for settlers in 1865 and the quaintly shaped kilns dotted around the island are evidence of the chicory farming that was one of the island's major industries during the Depression. Tourism boomed in the 1920s when an access track to the penguin colony was built.
Population
6000
Climate
Cool temperate
Summer: 13 – 24°C
Winter: 7 – 14°C
Rainfall: 764mm/year (wettest months May to August)