The pint-size paradise of Penguin Island

Long before 'Love Island' became a reality television show, a small island off WA's south coast was already reverberating with the sounds of romance.

The tiny inhabitants of this pint-size paradise spend their days eating and their nights getting cozy under the stars.

Penguin Island is located within the 6,450-hectare Shoalwater Islands Marine Park off the Rockingham coast, and supports one of the west coast's largest colonies of little penguins. It's also a place that attracts up to 40, 000 local and overseas visitors a year, seeking opportunities to observe the world’s smallest penguin in its natural environment.

At 12.5 hectares, it is often overshadowed by the much bigger Rottnest Island and its more extroverted quokkas, but it's an easy and affordable daytrip destination, especially for families with young children.

The Shoalwater Islands Marine Park itself stretches from Garden Island to Becher Point at Port Kennedy and its waterscape is dotted with limestone islands and rocky outcrops. Penguin Island is the only one you can land on.

Nearby Seal Island is a popular sunbathing spot for the world's rarest sea lion, the Australian Sea Lion. It is in a restricted wildlife sanctuary zone, but you can see the mammals from the water on a boat tour or private craft.

The area is also alive with dolphins, stingrays, sea birds and turtles. Shipwrecks and cavernous reefs make for good diving and snorkelling and on calm days it's perfect for paddle boarding or kayaking among natural sculptures such as Camel Rock.

Each October, Penguin Island reopens after its annual winter break and a daily ferry service resumes from Mersey Point until the end of May. Over winter the penguins are left to hatch and raise their chicks.

Each season is important to the colony, and about 100 penguins now live on the island.

To help the penguins in their amorous pursuits, man-made breeding boxes have been placed around the island.

Little penguins typically nest beneath dense vegetation; however, some of the island’s prime nesting habitat was historically cleared for holiday accommodation. Although the buildings were dismantled and removed during the 1980s and 1990s, the island’s vegetation communities are still in recovery.

DBCA Marine Park rangers, supported by volunteers and camp hosts, are actively undertaking revegetation works to restore habitat and increase nesting opportunities for little penguins and other seabird species.

A 1.5km viewing boardwalk with signs full of interesting facts guides visitors around Penguin Island and there are many lookouts along the way to take in the magnificent views of Shoalwater Islands Marine Park.

The Penguin Island Discovery Centre was closed in 2023 and there are no longer penguins available for visitors to view, so there is no guarantee that you'll see a wild penguin.

Little penguins spend a significant amount of time at sea during the day and return to the island under the cover of darkness. The space where the Discovery Centre was once located has now been rehabilitated with native vegetation to provide critical nesting habitat. DBCA has installed a shaded deck with interpretive signage describing the island’s unique fauna and the geological processes that formed the islands. Visitor facilities also include toilets, a large, grassed picnic area, and a network of boardwalks that guide visitors around the island, supported by interpretive signage along the routes.

Penguin Island also has a modern human history and traces of it remain.

An eccentric, Paul Seaforth McKenzie, squatted on the island from about 1914 and four years later, with plans for a holiday resort, was granted an annual lease. He became the self-styled King of Penguin Island and lived there until the mid-1920s.

McKenzie turned some of the limestone caves into crude accommodation with grandiose names such as Fairhaven and Tudor Hall, according to the Heritage Council of WA. One cave was used as a storage area.

McKenzie lived in a timber and iron shack he called Manor Hall, hosting parties and balls. You can still see the entrances to his caves, though today they are more likely to be occupied by a lazy sealion.

After McKenzie, the island was used for commercial ventures including camping. Timber and asbestos accommodation from the 1950s was taken down four decades later when the island was returned to conservation authorities.

The Shoalwater area is rich with Noongar culture and history. Noongar Whadjuk elder Trevor Walley says Little Penguins are called Weedee in traditional language. One local story tells how the area got its sea lions.

"The seals, a couple of them were young boys," Walley says. "They were told not to swim on the full moon and they did and as a lesson some of them lost their arms and legs and that's how the seals became."

Walley says there is something special in the area's waters.

"What I love about it is the twinkle on the water at times. If you look at the ocean you see little twinkling stars. They are the same as the twinkling stars in your eyes. That twinkle in your eye is the first ancestors."

The wildlife of Penguin Island would probably agree - it is a very special place.