Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony

We took a three day weekend to drive south to Oamaru and Dunedin. After some school work on Thursday, we packed up the Toyota Wish and headed to our first stop, Oamaru. Oamaru is on the east coast, about an hour and a half south of Christchurch, and it is known for the blue penguin colony that comes in each night after fishing out at sea all day.  It completely exceeded my expectations, and I am now in love with blue penguins and can't get over how cute they are! Oamaru also had THE MOST AMAZING playground we've found yet! 

View from our Airbnb - we arrived around 5:30pm

cute kitchen with ocean views 

love the basket lamps

 Dinner at Scott's Brewery - pre-penguin viewing

Cheers! 

looking out from the brewery down the "Victorian Precinct" area of town

Time to go see the penguins come in...we walked along the shore to the penguin colony.

Above - The view from our seats to watch the penguins. They come in after dusk in groups called "rafts." There were two seals just lazing about while the penguins walked by. We weren't allowed to take any photos or videos and had to remain quietly in our seats while they came in. There are naturalists who give commentary before the penguins come in. They also announced when a "raft" was coming in so you could try and find the dark spot in the ocean of the penguins as they approached the beach. 

Three different penguin rafts came in over the hour and half period for a total of about 200 penguins. When the penguins got to shore, they waddled up this little hill (shown above), looked around to make sure the coast was clear, and then scurried right in front of us to cross into their colony of nests. Some made it straight away and others toppled like bowling pins but then sprung themselves right back up to scurry across. Blue penguins are the smallest of all penguins and weigh about 1kg and are about 30-35cm tall. I wish I could have taken pics of them coming in; it was just so cute!  

We got lucky on the walk back to our Airbnb from the colony! Some penguins were walking right across the car park and the seaside path. We got a few pictures of these guys...

I spy a little blue penguin...