Churchill Island - the littlest island

By JILL HOCKING

At Summerland Beach, in the Phillip Island Nature Park in Victoria, tourist coaches by the dozen unload visitors to witness a colony of fairy penguins waddle up a beach.

It's only 5 pm but nearby Churchill Island is closing its doors for the day, and its visitors are making their way home, single-file, across a rickety timber bridge.

Around 2km long and 700m at its widest point, Churchill Island is the pipsqueak cousin to the other islands, Phillip and French, in Westernport Bay, which is 120km southeast of Melbourne.

Thousands of years ago the Bunurong Aboriginal tribe hunted for shark and oysters from the island's shores. When Lieutenant James Grant first set foot on Churchill Island in 1801, the land was well covered with coast banksias, sheoaks and manna gums.

Over two days Grant cleared a 30m by 40m patch and planted Victoria's first crops: wheat, potatoes, peas, rice, Indian corn and coffee beans.

The island's centrepiece is a weatherboard homestead built in 1872 as a seaside retreat for Melbourne businessman Samuel Amess. Workers' cottages, farm buildings and an extensive garden and orchard, all open to visitors, surround the homestead

Refreshments are served in a bay-windowed cafe, once the Amess family dining room. You can sip tea as they did almost 130 years ago and gaze across paddocks to Westernport Bay and the Bass Hills - Emerald-Isle lush or dry-as-a-bone, depending on the season.

With improvements to Phillip Island, the attractions of penguins and seals are supplemented by visitor centres crammed with interactive, whizz-bang technology. The best its tiny neighbour can do in the way of multimedia is a daggy video showing a self-conscious re-enactment of Grant's landing. The charms of Churchill Island are entirely natural.

Well-maintained gravel tracks suitable for bikes, wheelchairs and pushers wind around the island. Highland cattle and Clydesdales graze in the homestead paddocks. Dwarf mangroves thrive at the southern point, and to the north you stroll through a copse of ancient Moonahs, their trunks coiled like ropes.

Birdlife is abundant. With cygnets in tow, swans carve wakes in the still, clear water and at low tide bird-lovers spot cormorants, oyster-catchers, ibises and fat-bellied pelicans in the shallows and mudflats.

You can admire hazy views to French Island, the Bass Coast, Phillip Island and the Mornington Peninsula from viewing platforms and seats along the walking track.

The shady homestead gardens are perfect for a picnic or barbecue. In summer the island hosts outdoor events including jazz and theatre. There is an autumn festival and a gourmet food and wine festival.

Churchill Island is an easy day trip from Melbourne. There's ample accommodation on Phillip Island, however, if you want to make a night of it and stay for the Penguin Parade.

Casenotes

GETTING THERE: Churchill Island is 120km southeast of Melbourne. There is no accommodation.

The island is managed by Parks Victoria and is included as one of the four attractions of the Phillip Island Nature Pass.

PASSES: The pass also provides entry to the Penguin Parade, the Seal Rocks Sea Life Centre and the Koala Conservation Centre. The Phillip Island Nature Ticket costs $23.90 an adult and $59.50 for a family of four. The Phillip Island Information Centre is at Newhaven on the Phillip Island Tourist Road. Contact the centre for accommodation, attraction tickets, holiday packages and souvenir sales.

The centre is open seven days a week from 9 am to 5 pm. Ph 1300 366 422, fax (03) 5956 7095.

Phillip Island

email piic@compcom.com.au