WELCOME TO CHURCHILL ISLAND We hope you enjoy the tranquillity and history of this special island. First used by Indigenous people, the island later became the first farmed site in Victoria.

to walk track DAILY ACTIVITIES No Entry Services Area • 1.00pm – 1.45pm Horse Wagon rides* Cocky Blacksmsmiith Works Shop Weekends, School & Public Holidays – Weath- Toilets Shop er Permitting • 2.10pm Shearing Car Park Whip Shed Cow milking € Wash Cracking O

Please note that p House o r • D 2.30pm we have had to change h c a Machinery o Sheep shearingour farm activities due C Visitor Cow Milking Shed to physical distancing Centre • Stables 2.45pm requirements and to keep Herrb Whip cracking Garrden Rogerrss Animal our visitors safe. Cottttagess Nursery Amess House Hay Shed • 3.05pm Please refer to Working dogs www.penguins.org.au Kiittchen Gardrden for updated details of • 3.20pm available activities. Sheep shearing Weather permitting Working Dogs ALL DAY ACTIVITIES to walk Orchard track • Animal nursery Chooks Map not to scale • Gift shop

• Café open from Lavender 10am - 5pm Monday to Friday Garden

9am - 5pm Saturdays Wagon Rides

Please call (03) 5951 2830 for more details or check out www.penguins.org.au Help the environment – please return map to front desk if you don’t want to keep it. NORTH POINT The northern most point of Churchill Island CHURCHILL ISLAND is a good place to see OLD MOONAHS bird life, especially WALKS at low tide when the The gnarled trees with trunks that BASALT BEDROCK mud flats are revealed. The circuit track offers look like twisted rope are Moonahs. Take a moment to look Look out for the royal magnificent views across Many of the trees are ancient - the at the 50 million year spoonbills, pied oyster Western Port and the chance oldest Moonahs could be at least 500 old basalt rocks which catchers, ibis, gulls, to see some jet-setting birds. years old. are the foundation herons and cormorants The waters and mudflats stones of Churchill moving over shallow surrounding Churchill Island. Churchill Island waters and mud flats. Island are listed under the was originally part of Looking north on a MAKING AMENDS Convention on Wetlands of Phillip Island before clear day you can make International Importance (the A lot of woodland on Churchill Island a sea level rise some out Tortoise Head, has been cleared for farming. We are 10–15,000 years ago French Island and the Ramsar Convention). now trying to bring it back to how it severed the land link. refineries at Hastings. was before settlement. ISLAND LOOP In an amazing effort, rangers have NORTH EAST COVE • 5 km, about 1.5 hours re- removed nearly all rabbits from this Most of the building materials and furnishings that turn. end of the island! Extensive replanting went into Amess House came ashore in this tiny of Moonahs, she-oaks and boobialla sheltered cove. Tidal variations of 1.7 metres made it has also been completed. necessary to transport goods ashore in longboats. NORTH POINT LOOP Another way of doing it was to bring the boat into • 2.5 km, about one hour the jetty on one high tide, and float it off on the next. return. GRANT’S MONUMENT In 1801, Lt. James Grant landed on OBSERVATION POINT • Walks begin via the visitor Churchill Island and planted the first centre. From the observation deck you can see a range of crops in Victoria. He also raised a waders and seabirds, either on the mud flats, floating • Please close all gates, blockhouse measuring 24 x 12 ft. Lt. offshore or overhead. That strange whistle above you keep behind fences and Grant wrote in his journal “I scarcely could be a pair of whistling kites gliding with the aid know a place I would rather call mine barriers and do not chase of the breeze. These agile birds of prey nest high in than this little island.” Today the exact the trees in the spring. the animals. site of Grant’s blockhouse garden remains a mystery. • Don’t forget binoculars! MANGROVES AND MUDFLATS The extensive mudflats of Western Port are an important breeding and feeding ground for fish BEFORE THE BRIDGE and birds. These mangroves are the smallest and Imagine driving cattle across the southern-most variety in mudflats at low tide or waiting Australia. There is little until high tide to float your oxygen in the dense mud, luggage over on a barge. That’s so the roots stick up to how it was up until 1959 when Dr help the tree ‘breathe air’ - Harry Jenkins built the first timber like a snorkel! bridge. The current bridge was completed in 2000. BEFORE BASS Before European settlement, Indigenous people visited Phillip Island. These mudflats provided great tucker (food) like flounder, shark and oysters.