Montague Island (Barunguba): The Complete Guide to Tours, Wildlife and the Lighthouse

The morning guided tour is the headline Montague Island experience and the one most first-time visitors should book. It gives you the longest time on the island — around two and a half hours ashore — and the full guided walk: up the track past the penguin breeding boxes and the restored keepers’ cottages to the 1881 lighthouse at the island’s highest point, where the reward is a breathtaking panorama over the seal colonies and the NSW coastline stretching away in both directions. An NPWS guide brings the island’s Aboriginal songline, maritime history and wildlife to life along the way.

The lighthouse itself is the centrepiece. First lit in 1881 and built from granite quarried on the island, it was automated in 1986 and remains part of Australia’s coastal navigation network — an active piece of working maritime heritage. Standing at the base of the tower with the ocean all around is one of the genuine highlights of any visit to the Narooma region, and the morning light over the colonies is the best of the day for photographs.

It suits active families with children over five, history lovers and anyone who wants the fullest version of the island. It’s less suited to very young children or anyone who can’t manage the jetty ladder and the steep walking — there’s a moderate fitness requirement, with up to around 3km of walking on uneven, sometimes steep terrain.

During penguin season — roughly September to February — NPWS runs a special evening tour to watch the little penguins return from a day at sea to their nesting grounds at dusk. It’s a genuinely magical experience: in the fading light, the world’s smallest penguins come ashore in their rafts and waddle up through the tussock grass to their burrows and the penguin boxes scattered across the island, with up to around two thousand pairs breeding here.

This is the tour to choose if the wildlife, rather than the lighthouse, is what draws you. It’s a quieter, more atmospheric outing than the daytime tours, and the guide’s commentary on the colony and its conservation adds real depth to what you’re seeing. You may also spot a penguin or two on daytime tours during the season, but the evening tour is built around the dusk return.

It suits wildlife enthusiasts, photographers comfortable in low light and families with children old enough for an evening on the water. The honest caveat is that penguin numbers and tour availability vary year to year — some seasons the evening tour is replaced by a sunset tour if numbers are low — so always confirm the current penguin tour when you book, and dress warmly for an exposed island after dark.

For many visitors the most memorable way to experience Montague Island is to get in the water with its seals. In the warmer months, operators run seal snorkel trips to the shallow, sheltered sites where the curious fur seals will often swim and play around snorkellers and divers, twisting and darting and circling back. It’s an interaction, not a viewing — the seals are as curious about you as you are about them.

The water at the island can be five to fifteen metres deep and conditions are open water rather than a sheltered pool, so the key requirement is being a confident swimmer; wetsuits and snorkelling gear are provided by operators. For certified divers, the same seal sites and the deeper kelp reefs around the island make Montague one of the best dives on the NSW coast — covered in full in our dedicated Diving in Narooma guide.

It suits confident-swimmer families, non-divers who want the seal encounter without scuba, and certified divers chasing the kelp reefs. It doesn’t suit weak or nervous swimmers, who should build water confidence first, and on a rough day the skipper may call it — so keep your plans flexible and treat it as a wildlife experience rather than a guarantee.

Not everyone can manage the jetty ladder or the steep island walk — and for those visitors, a shoreline wildlife cruise is the answer. These trips circumnavigate the island without landing, bringing you close to the fur seal colonies hauled out on the rocks, the seabirds along the cliffs and, in season, the whales passing offshore. It’s the most accessible way to experience Montague’s wildlife, and it doubles as a whale-watching cruise between roughly September and November.

Because there’s no landing, the cruise suits a wider range of visitors than the guided island tours — older travellers, families with very young children, and anyone who’d rather watch the seals and whales from the comfort of the boat. The trade-off is that you don’t set foot on the island or reach the lighthouse, so if the history and the climb are your priority, choose a guided landing tour instead.

It suits the less mobile, families with under-fives, and anyone short on time who still wants the island’s wildlife. It’s also a good cool-season option, when snorkelling is less appealing and the whales are running. As with every Montague trip it’s weather-dependent and open water, so take sea-sickness precautions before boarding if you’re prone to it.

For a genuinely unique experience, NSW National Parks offers overnight accommodation on the island in the restored heritage lighthouse keepers’ cottages — the Head Keeper’s Cottage and the Assistant Keeper’s Cottage. Sympathetically restored with modern conveniences, a cottage stay lets you experience the island after the day tours have left: the wildlife, the sunset and sunrise, the lighthouse, and the rare quiet of a night on a wildlife sanctuary nine kilometres offshore.

This is one of the most distinctive stays on the entire NSW coast, and the appeal is the solitude — once the last tour boat departs, the island is effectively yours, with the penguins coming ashore at dusk and the seals on the rocks below. Stays are managed by NPWS, include guided experiences, and are popular, so they book out well ahead.

It suits couples, photographers and anyone marking a special occasion who wants more than a day trip. It’s not suited to travellers wanting hotel-style service or easy in-and-out access — you’re committing to the island’s tour schedule and conditions for your transfers — and the same fitness and ladder requirements apply. Book early, pack warm layers, and treat it as the rare, off-grid experience it is.