P, p, p, penguin!

We drove to Dunedin on the east coast. It's closest to the most easterly point of New Zealand, the furthest we can possibly be from the UK.

Settled by the Scots in the mid 19th century it was the most affluent city for a long time. It is situated around a long inslet and up over various hills. The churches and buildings echo to some extent the Scottish architecture and the street names sometimes sound familiar, Princes Street, George Street etc, there is even an amazing Botanical Gardens! We heard bagpipes, and saw tartan! There was even a statue of Robbie Burns! I must admit to having loved the city, it felt like the first proper city we had been to! I think that is because it is one of the main University cities and it actually had a city centre. 

We headed along the coast out of the city to Tiaroa Head, a peninsula that is the only mainland home to albatross (the Royal Albatross) in the world (the rest generally live on fairly uninhibited islands).  The wind wasn't blowing, so the albatross were not flying! We saw one gliding around, with its 7 foot wing span. To be honest I wasn't the least bit bothered. Albatross = yawn!

But put me in a 4x4 and bomb over a few fields to get to a private beach and I am much more excited!

First we found seals! The mums-to-be were all snoozing on the rocks. The seal pups however had been left in a group whilst their mums looked for food. They had found a freshwater pool half way up the cliff and were playing! Some dozed literally 2ft away whilst others wanted to investigate who these strangers were!

They have such appealing eyes that you can't tear yourself away from them!

When we finally managed to drag ourselves away we headed to a hide on the side of the cliff to look for yellow-eyed penguins. They are the rarest penguins in the world, so imagine our surprise when we found a couple of them hiding in our hide! We quietly stuck our heads around the corner, said hello and then left them to it! We managed to see a couple of others further down the beach with binoculars. With a total population of 400, seeing 4 is not a bad average!

We did also spot a blue penguin nesting in the rocks. They are the smallest penguins!

I was do happy to see my first wild penguins that I wanted to do high 5's all the way back to Dunedin!

I then headed out for the evening with 3 of the boys to celebrate with some sushi, sashimi and sake!