Penguin safari

Our first alarm went off as early as 1:00. The sky was clear, there was no moon, no city anywhere close to us, so the perfect spot to watch the stars. That was pretty awesome. A few hours later an early alarm again as we wanted to avoid the heat and the crowds on the Hooker Valley trail. The sun had risen but wasn't anywhere close to warming us up yet due to the surrounding mountains. We managed to set off at 7:30 with our fleeces on, and they stayed on the whole way to the glacier lake as we were in the shadows the whole way. When we arrived at the lake it was really still quite empty here and we spend some time here while waiting for the sun to hit it. There were some icebergs in the water as well. We spotted a tent just off the beach, turned out to be of a French couple who spoke decent English against all odds. Would've been a cool (and free!) place to stay as well with a stunning view, but alas, we hadn't really considered it. We walked back to the campsite and packed our tent.

Time to leave the Mount Cook area and head back towards the east coast. We realised our fuel tank was almost empty, and the only station in the touristy alpine town was out of order. The next one was in Twizel, some 65km further. This added some extra excitement to the trip but we eventually made it without having to push the car. From Twizel we drove further east through a landscape of yellow grassed hills and dammed lakes. We had a quick stop to look at some elephant rocks (movie set of Narnia) and not very spectacular whale fossils, before arriving to Oamaru, the self-proclaimed penguin capital of New Zealand. Most obviously we had to stop here and do every effort to spot these little cute creatures.

We arrived at the campsite at 17:00 but the first penguin species, the yellow eyed penguins, were gonna arrive on land just one hour later. This meant we had to be very time efficient. By now we are very good in setting up our tent, so that was no challenge. We got some quick noodle takeaway and drove off to Bushy Beach. Here we hurried to the viewpoint on the cliff above the beach. Some people were just leaving and we were a bit worried that we had just missed the landing. We asked a guy holding binoculars, and indeed one had landed on the beach and gone into the bushes. We looked a bit around the beach but nothing was happening, so we got our noodles and had an enjoyable dinner with a beach view. The weather was perfect. Then Susanne spotted something in the water, and it was a yellow eyed penguin! For how far away it was, it was remarkably exciting. The guy with the binoculars was kind enough to let us have a look through them for a bit. He also knew a whole lot about them since his job is counting penguin landings every evening. Was interesting to talk to him a bit.

However, there was also another penguin species in town. Handily their landing time is right after the sun sets. So we changed location to the harbour and walked a bit around. The official way to see these little blue penguins - the smallest penguin species in the world - is by paying 40 dollars to sit on a tribune. We were not sure if we wanted to pay for that, and by the time we informed about it the show was already fully booked, and it had already started as well. We knew where the tribunes were however and just beside it you could also have a bit of a look. We saw some small penguins jump up on the rocks, making their way to their nests. The whole thing gave us the feeling that those tickets were overpriced though. We walked a bit around the harbour area and it didn't take long before we also saw penguins trying to get on land outside of the tribune area. They climbed up the rocks but then had to cross first the pedestrian path and later on the parking lot and street. Some people were watching them respectfully from the distance trying to be quiet and still. But as always not everyone does. At some point the penguins were what seemed paralized and afraid to move any further. They were hiding in some small bushy area between the rocks and the pedestrian path. Eventually they went for it and crossed the path. It looked super cute.

We are happy we could finally see some penguins and it was certainly special but the whole thing about how we humans ruin and scare nature left a bit of a bad aftertaste.Read more