We arrived in Dunedin after the massive drive straight from Christchurch, it took about 6 hours in total after being stuck behind the odd lorry.
We got there in the late afternoon and the place looked really cool. It had the whole cafe culture thing going on like most NZ cities/towns so we decided to head stright for a cafe for the evening.
The next day we woke up to some stunning weather again and so decided to go for a drive arround to the Otago Peninsula just around the harbour. After taking some random directions and driving for around 30 minutes up some crazily steep roads we stumbled upon sand fly bay (which we had read about) It was believed that Sea Lions and believe it or not, Penguins actually come onto the beach in the late afternoon after a day at sea. Feeling slightly sceptical we chilled in the van above the beach for a while and then made the 40 min walk to the look out at the other end of the beach. We could not believe it when we saw a Penguin standing mid way up the beach, encouraged we continued. After doing a stake-out for a while, more and more Penguins left the sea and strolled up the beach and rocks, it was unreal.
After a good hour of watching from the hide we started to stroll back as it was getting dark. As we were walking we came across a huge Sea Lion lying on the beach, we took a few photos and got chased up the beach by it, quite scarey actually.
It was an amazing experience to see Penguins in the wild, especially as we never expected too, also we found out it was the most endangered species on the planet, the Yellow Eyed Penguin.
A truely unique day.
