With yesterday's success with the whales, today's targets were more penguins and elephant seals.

Having gained another passenger for the car, a Québécois guy whose name I can't remember, we set off on the 200km journey south to Punta Tumba. This is home to over a million Magellenic Penguins. Thankfully all but the last 22km of the journey was paved. A fair stretch was even a dual carriageway.

We were very pleased to spot an armadillo (of the seven banded variety we believe) scuttling along the gravel road as we approached the coast. Unfortunately he was very shy and I only got a partial snap shot as he hid under a bush.

First we visited the newly built visitors centre. This gave a lot of information of the fauna of the region, including the Grey Fox we'd seen the day before, the Mara (a large rodent) that I'd glimpsed by the road en route, and the Guanaco (llama-like animals) that we'd been seeing all over Patagonia. Wildlife paradise.

The colony was an amazing site/sight. They are not exaggerating with the estimate of a million birds, they are absolutely everywhere. It is a breeding colony and so the coast up to at least a kilometre inland is covered with nests and at this time of a year most of them come complete with new born chicks. You are restricted to marked pathways with rangers posted along the route to ensure you stick to them. However many nests are literally right next to the paths, and penguins are constantly crossing as they go about their business. Obviously they have right of way, and if they decide to stop in the middle of the path you have to wait until they move on before continuing. Luckily most of them seemed to be in a hurry.

It was fantastic to be so close to the birds, especially parents and chicks. There will be a lot of deletion to be done on the camera!

Next we headed back up the coast - 40km of gravel road - to a beach that is home to a colony of elephant seals. En route we saw several Patagonian Ostrich, including a mother and two young dashing across the road. The seals are not in a reserve and so in theory you are free to go right up to them and even touch them. This doesn't seem to be the wisest or most nature-kind idea.

We were expecting huge numbers, when we found them here were actually only a dozen or so but it was still fascinating to be able to get as close as we dared. There were only females and their young, unfortunately no adult males with the nose that inspired the elephant seal name. These decidedly unladylike creatures were passing the afternoon dozing on the beach, farting and sneezing to their hearts' content. Obviously we didn't find this in the least bit amusing :).

Having had our fill of wildlife spotting for the weekend we headed back to Puerto Madryn where Fabrice and I were booked onto an overnight bus to Buenos Aires. Merely another 18 hours further north. A small country Argentina is not!