Penguins!

After much work up and down the coasts of New Zealand we finally saw some penguin colonies. We saw a few in Abel Tasman National Park but only when swimming by. We never really got a good look at them until now.

We are in Oamaru right now on the east coast of the South Island. There are two penguin colonies here. One is the blue penguin and the other is the yellow eyed penguin. The yellow eyed penguin is the rarest penguin in the world. They are supposed to be scared off really easy and you are supposed to be very quiet to see them. They come in from sea right around dark. There was a viewing area on a bluff and you could watch them float ashore like driftwood and all of a sudden they would pop up and waddle across the beach.

After a while they would waddle away and disappear into the bush. We didn't really expect anything else when all of a sudden a few came out of the bushes right in front of our face!

It was really cool to see the rarest penguin in the world in it's natural environment. Few people can witness such an event. What an experience.

Just around the corner was the colony of blue penguins. They come in at dark and are in the process of nesting right now as mating season is going on. They would come across the road and hide under sheds where they made their nests. Also really cool but it was hard to get a picture because the flash scares them off.

Overall, it was freaking cool to see some penguins in the wild carrying on like they do everyday. Worth the wait all this time.