St Kilda Breakwater Penguin Colony

There are penguins in Melbourne. Real, wild penguins, living on a breakwater six kilometres from the CBD, and you can see them for free every single night. Around fourteen hundred little penguins, the smallest penguin species in the world, have made the St Kilda breakwater their home. They waddle out of Port Phillip Bay at sunset, scramble over the volcanic rocks, and settle into their burrows for the night. It is one of the most extraordinary wildlife experiences in any major city on Earth.

The breakwater was constructed for the nineteen fifty-six Olympic Games, and nobody planned for penguins. But the volcanic rocks used in the construction turned out to be perfect burrow material. The penguins moved in, liked the rent, and never left. They have been studied continuously since nineteen eighty-six by Earthcare St Kilda, a volunteer organisation that monitors the colony.

During the day, the penguins are out in the bay feeding on anchovies and other small fish. They can dive up to sixty metres and stay underwater for over a minute. As the sun sets, they return to the breakwater in small groups called rafts, porpoising through the shallows before hauling themselves up onto the rocks. A new pier design opened in December twenty twenty-four with a hundred-and-fifty-metre elevated boardwalk that gives you views down into the colony without disturbing them. Here is the rule that matters: no flash photography, no torches, no picking them up. These are wild animals in their natural habitat, and they bite. But watching them waddle past your feet at dusk, squeaking and squabbling, is genuinely magical. The fact that this happens in a major city is the no way moment.