Travelling Victoria, Australia – With Wildlife Tours

Paul Beames, of Wildlife Tours Australia divulges some inside information on the incredible, diverse terrain and activities that travelling Victoria has to offer on land and water, showing that this state has it all!

What is it about Victoria that makes tours special?
As the smallest state on mainland Australia, Victoria is home to an amazing diversity in a relatively compact area. You’ve probably heard the term, ‘four seasons in one day’ in relation to Melbourne weather and sometimes that is absolutely true, however, it’s this variety of weather patterns which gives rise to the diversity of environment right on Melbourne’s door step.

We only need to look at regions immediately around Melbourne which allow for easy access to day touring and highlight how fortunate we are in terms of being spoilt for choice – Great Ocean Road, Phillip Island, The Grampians, and world class wine regions in Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula. In addition to these regions, Victoria is also home to some other stunning areas such as the High Country, the Dandenongs/Great Dividing Range which are also home to some stunning pockets of cool temperate rainforest. In total, Victoria is home to 36 National Parks covering 2.5 million hectares of land. When we are speaking in rms of tours, Victoria really is the place to be!

When did you decide you wanted to run your own tours? What were you doing before Wildlife Tours?
After working for multiple companies around the world in various capacities, I saw an opportunity to deliver tours around our own country, in particular, our wonderful state of Victoria. I had a look around at what other organisations were doing this, and thought there was a real opportunity to raise the bar. There seemed to be very few organisations delivering an: informative, interactive, educational and entertaining experience. So in 2009 I embarked upon a quest to perfect the ultimate touring experience through wildlife tours Australia.

Do you still take tours out now?
From time to time, I still get out there on the road. It still gives me a real buzz, and brings me back to my core purpose – which is making people happy, and showing them some of my beautiful country. Now I get to do that on a much larger scale instead of one bus at a time.

How do you make your tours different to others that are available?
As a smaller, (but growing), family owned business our focus from day one has been about delivering the friendliest, most enjoyable, entertaining, informative and interactive tours in Australia. Like any good tourism operator, we value customer satisfaction above all else in terms of how our business is operated on a daily basis.

In a competitive market, point of difference is crucial to ‘being seen’ and so aside from the basic foundational core values of our business, we also constantly review our products to identify areas of improvement and change. As an example, we are now ready to launch a Great Ocean Road Reverse tour, which visits all of the highlights of the region but starts at the end and gives our customers the pleasure of discovering the region without the hoards of other tourists.

Do you have a favourite destination to take people to?
The Great Ocean Road is one of my old time favourites.

If someone was interested in extending the stay for a week or two to take in the atmosphere of the country, where would you recommend?
One week or two is not going to get you very far in a country the size of Australia. It would probably be best to focus on one or two states within Australia – if you had a couple of weeks in Victoria, I would suggest:
1. The Great Ocean Road
2. The Grampians
3. Phillip Island
4. Yarra Valley
5. Mornington Peninsula
6. Wilsons Promontory

Visit www.wildlifetours.com.au for more info.