Fairy Penguin fun with Low Head Penguin Tours in Tasmania (with video)
Southern New Zealand, the Southern coast of mainland Australia and Tasmania are the only places in the world you’ll find Fairy Penguins, so if you’re in Tassie you need to see them! These 30cm high cuties (also known as Little Penguins) scamper onto several beaches in the state just after sunset to get to their burrows, and it’s so amazing to see them.
From our roadtrip of Tasmania’s east coast, I know that you can see them at the Neck on Bruny Island, Bicheno, and Low Head, amongst other places. Low Head is just a 45min drive from Launceston, so as we were staying there for two nights we booked onto the organised Low Head Penguin Tours for $20 each.
When we arrived we were split into small groups and as soon as it was dark we were taken down to the beach by a couple of guides who had all the fairy penguin info. We stood quietly on the beach and watched as the little penguins waddled out of the sea and stood waiting for their pals before they headed up the beach. Safety in numbers and all! Our guides then took us up to the bushes at the top of the beach where we all sat down in a line along the edge of the pathways through the bushes. It was then just a few minutes of quiet waiting before two teeny penguins came running up the pathway and straight past us – MAJOR excitement! They literally ran within a foot of where I was sat, throwing us all suspicious looks as they went. It was so lush! I definitely found it very hard to stay quiet at this stage haha!
We then spent another 20 mins or so wandering around the bushes and watched them waddling around their burrows, and generally making a massive racket. Having never seen a wild penguin before this was one of my favourite nights ever!
I can’t recommend doing this tour enough. Many beaches display information about the penguins and explain that you need to stay off the beach, otherwise you risk scaring them back into the sea and their chicks won’t get fed. But being on a tour like this with experts, who know the penguins’ behaviour so well, meant that we were able to get a lot closer without upsetting the penguins, which of course is much more fun! Low Head also has a pretty great sunset view too! 🙂
