On leaving Akaroa this morning, we drove south on the coastal road towards Oamaru. We had been told that this small town was famed not only for its architecture, earning it the reputation of New Zealand´s best built town with buildings including Corinthian columns, but also for its colonies of penguins, both Yellow-Eyed and Blue. We chose to stay in the Heritage Court Motor Lodge for one night as we explored the penguin activity.

The town, as expected, was pretty, but to be honest, we were on a one night stop to see the wildlife, so didn´t spend too much time looking around as we didn´t arrive ill mid afternoon.

The Yellow-Eyed penguins are the first, during late afternoon, to make their pilgrimage from the ocean waters towards the shelter of the scrub covered beach hillsides. This species is only found in New Zealand and is one of the rarest penguins. They stand at 65cm tall and weigh between 5 and 6 kilograms, making it the fourth largest of the worlds penguins. Their distinguishing feature is the distinctive yellow eye and bright yellow stripe that runs through the eye and around the back of its head.

Once arriving at the coastline, we took the pathway along the ridge towards several viewing posts overlooking the beach below. It wasn´t long from our  wooden lookout shelter that we spotted the first penguins coming ashore. A bit hard to see as they started to arrive at the beach further down the coast and so had to rely on binoculars and camera zoom lenses. Once the penguins arrived on shore, they made their way up towards the shelter of the bush covered hillsides running along the beach. Once here, the warmed themselves up by spreading their flippers which comically looked as though they were waving. We stayed for about 45 minutes and so only managed to see about five of these birds come ashore, but watching them waddle their way across the sand was worth it. Then it was off to see the other species, making their way to shore slightly further down the coast.

The Blue penguin colony here is located in a disused quarry where the penguins chose to start nesting during the 1970´s. The area was finally cleared to enable the birds to continue settling and breeding here in small, purpose built nesting boxes. These penguins as stated before are the smallest in the world and really are blue in colour, aside for a small amount of white on its underside. The colony here is well organized, and there is an entry fee of 22 NZ dollars to view the nighttime re-arrival of the group.

You sit in an outside, tiered seating area overlooking a small cove where a rocky ramp is available to the birds to enable them to make it back to the safety of their colony. After a small talk about the birds, their was silence as they slowly made their way ashore in ´raft´s´- small groups of about 12 each time riding in with the surf. Once on shore, they grouped together and began their journey, jumping and sliding up the rocks. They are soooooo small..!!! and so comical to watch. On reaching the summit of the rocks, they gathered together in a group to work out who was the bravest to make the break across the narrow gravel path, to the holes through a wooden plank wall before reaching the grassy, hill covered area housing bushes and nesting boxes for them. It looked as though they were all nudging each other, egging each other on, before they made a run for it in a small group, the Mission Impossible music would have been an ideal anthem. Once they had all made it through to the other side, they began staking their claims to their beds.

As the other ´raft´made it ashore, again huddling together gathering courage, those already ´at home´began calling to them encouraging the new arrivals to make their way up. We watched this for three arriving groups, until about 75 had made it back, but then the wind picked up and it was far too cold to sit any longer! You are not allowed to take any photo´s during this nighttime visit, so I will have to add a link to this post so that you can see what these little birds look like, and believe me, they are tiny!

It was worth a one night stop over here just to see two of the worlds rarest penguins in their natural habitat…..a sight that I hope will be available to many more people in years to come……..one that will stay with both of us I am sure………