MELBOURNE: Over 770,000 people across the globe logged on to the internet to watch the famous Penguin parade in Australia that was live streamed from an empty tourist destination spot.

The nightly penguin parade, one of the major tourist attractions in Victoria''s Phillip island near Melbourne, was on Tuesday live-streamed as thousands of people tuned in to watch the penguins waddling back to their burrows from the sea.

As part of the parade, over 900 little penguins waddled ashore from Bass Strait to their burrows in the Phillip Island Nature Parks which are temporarily closed to visitors as a result of stage 3 lockdown imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus in regional Victoria.

The ''Live Penguin TV'' event is being dubbed as the world''s first nightly live stream of natural wildlife event and was viewed from some 30 countries including the United States, Japan, China and Germany.

Catherine Basterfield, the chief executive of Phillip Island Nature Parks, said the initial response was beyond their wildest dreams.

"It seems to have hit the intent which was to put a smile on people''s faces in their homes," she said.

"Everyone loves penguins. But I think particularly in Victoria and Australia and probably a lot of places around the world, everyone''s looking for some fun distractions to keep them entertained."

Stating up to 3,500 penguins could swarm the beach at its peak later this year, Basterfield said:''''I don''t know if they''re missing us or not but they certainly don''t mind if we''re there".

Viewers can either watch the event free of cost through their facebook page or through Youtube channel.