The Penguin Place Photo Gallery

The Penguin Place tour is one of the best wildlife tours we've found in New Zealand. The tour begins with a video and short lecture on the yellow-eyed penguin and the history of Penguin Place. You are then driven through the owners working sheep farm, down to the beautiful coastline where Penguin Place has built a number of nests and the penguins return each year to molt, breed, and hatch and raise their chicks. There are half buried tunnels and hides, which put you at eye level with the penguins and allow you to get very close without disturbing them. Penguin Place is also home to a number of seals, which can be seen lounging on the rocks. 

Penguin Place remains a working sheep ranch

Beautiful coast at Penguin Place

A number of seals come ashore at Penguin Place to bask in the sun

Each penguin who returns to Penguin Place has a name and usually a story. Yellow-eyed penguins will sometimes mate for life if the pair can successfully produce chicks. Both parents take turns fishing, hatching the egg, and raising the chicks. But some pairings end in separation, and will go off looking for other mates. One young male penguin, had been left by his mate and seemed to be having difficulties learning how to sit on an egg. Penguin Place had given the penguin a plastic egg to see if he would learn how to sit on it properly.

A young male penguin a little confused about how to actually "sit" on an egg

The man-made nests are used year after year by the returning yellow-eyed penguins

A pair of penguins preening near their nest

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