We really wanted to see Penguins, and a long 5 hour drive across to The Otago Peninsula in the Southeast of the South Island gave us the chance of seeing two types, the small Blue Penguin which only appears at night and the Yellow-eyed Penguin.

As we arrived, we managed to get on the last tour of the day to the Yellow-eyed Penguin colony. In minutes there were cute-little penguins waddling past us up the hill back to their nests. The colony has lots of bunks underground where the tourists can view the Penguins without causing them too much distress! It was easy to tell that there were groups formed in the colony, they all have their territory and they chase each other around defending their territory/houses/nests late in the afternoon after returning from fishing, which was really funny. We got to see a new born pup in the nest with it's parents protecting it. He was dark, fat and scruffy and we got some great close-up photos. Then just before we left we were lucky enough to see two penguins, 'a happy couple' come home from fishing. We saw them pop out of the sea and waddle back up the beach to their home

Then later on the night, we drove to another bay, where the smallest penguin in the world (the Blue Penguin) comes ashore just after sunset. It was getting late, and everybody here was getting tired and restless, then we heard a movement in the water. Then this was quickly followed by a scurrying noise. Then you could see around four penguins quickly waddling their way up the hill to a gate where we were stood. Then around 70 more followed over the next ten minutes. Once they got to the gate, one Penguin would peep his head out, check that the coast was clear and then turn around and signal to all the other penguins that they could continue (past us) back to their nests in the hills. It was so cute. They then trudged along only a couple of feet away from us back to their nests.

We then headed back to the campervan and parked up in a carpark for the evening and heard all the possums making strange noises all night.