New Zealand - Otago Peninsula

Yellow-eyed penguins are one of the rarest types of penguin in the world and... we saw them! We went into these hides which looked like something from World War I and got really close to these penguins who were just standing under trees looking scruffy! They moult at this time of year and so can't go in the water for a few weeks until all their old feathers have fallen out and the new ones have been coated in some sort of oil that they produce to make them properly waterproof. Hence the standing around under trees looking scruffy! Bless them :0)



We saw little blue penguins too, but to be honest the sight wasn't quite as impressive as they don't come ashore until dusk, by which time all we actually saw were little dark shapes waddling up the beach! We did see a huge sea lion though, which is different to a seal because they're bigger, the males dark and the females light in colour. They have flatter noses and walk differently plus they have external ears (see I do learn some things, just not about boring old rocks!) Unfortunately by the time Ben got his camera out the sea-lion had decided he'd had enough and hauled his ass back into the water and swam off. He did get some shots of the huge endangered albatrosses that flew overhead though :0)



Obviously there's been more hiking too and it all seems to finally be paying off as both Ben and I have had to make new holes in our belts to keep our tatty old trousers up - whoop whoop!!

Ben:
There are more photos here.