After all the wildlife devastation currently in Australia from our worst ever bushfire season, it was wonderful to visit a State Park with lots of wildlife unaffected by fires!
Staying 10 mins up the road in Warrnambool overnight I took the opportunity to spend a pleasant few hours here. Warrnambool is a large country town about 4 hours from Melbourne with fantastic beaches and also whale watching in the winter.
The Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve is positioned inside an extinct volcano and is rich with native wildlife living in their natural habitat. Animals you might see there include kangaroos, koalas, emus, sugar gliders, wallabies, echidnas, shingleback lizards and other reptiles and many species of waterbirds. Keep in mind, it’s not a zoo – the animals are living wild, so there’s no guarantee what animals you will see on the day. Personally, I saw several emus (close up), several koalas, and a shingleback lizard (quite large right in the middle of the pathway), lots of blue fair wrens and many other birds. For kangaroo sightings the best time is early in the morning and late afternoon.
There are picnic facilities and the information centre has basic drinks and snacks and aboriginal arts & crafts for sale.
Keep your eyes peeled just driving in – my best koala sighting of the day was as I was driving in! Plus the scenery on the way in is pretty special too. There are a few spots where you can pull over and takes some pics.
Oh and I should mention – it’s free! Not many places you can say that about these days. You can enter any day/time but of course the visitor centre will only be open normal business hours. You can book day or night guided interactive walks if you wish also.
Walks
There are also many well marked walks in the reserve from flat boardwalks to very steep hill climbs. None of them are very long, so you could do them all in one day if you wanted. Which is what I did – and I’m a 50 something women with dodgy feet, so should be no problem for most of you.
Some of the more challenging, but more satisfying, walks were the Journey to the Last Volcano which probably has some of the best views, particularly for those of you interested in photography. Make sure you do the full rim of the volcano for the better views of the crater lake. Also the Tower Hill Peak had some great views but very steep!
The Lava Tongue boardwalk is flat and nearly all boardwalk but I found this one to be quite disappointing. It’s very overgrown and all I could see were miles of very high reeds. No water or birds visible. Just a few fairy wrens around the place.
The other main walk is the Wagon Bay loop which is quite easy and where I spotted the large shingleback lizard.
Even if you are not very mobile there are lots of animal sightings around the car park and the picnic areas and the drive in and out. So really something for everyone here.
Useful links
Please feel free to leave a comment or ask me questions you like on our experiences of Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve.
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Hope you’ve enjoyed this Travel Inspiration from an Empty Nester!
Excellent post and photos. We visited Warnambool last year, but didn’t visit the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve – a good reason to back. The volcano lake reminded me of Mt Gambier’s Blue Lake and the steep climb up very similar to climbing Mt Shank! I enjoy these posts a lot, because they are short and easy to read. Congratulations.
Thanks Joycee 🙂 Much appreciate your kind comments. And yes I thought that too – about it reminding me of the Blue Lake – which I probably haven’t seen for 20 years or so! Sorry for the delay in getting back to you too. We only got back from hols last night.