Penguins and Sheep

I have noticed that this is putting the dates as the day before it happened because we are a day ahead here. Never mind. On Thursday we were in Akaroa, a very pretty place and apparently a place that the French attempted to colonise but the English slipped in whilst the French had gone home to fetch their belongings. It is a natural harbour in a extinct volcano. We found a little company that runs sea kayaking Seal and Penguin Tours. Oddly the guide was a Frenchman called Kevin! We were taken over the hill from Akaroa to a little farm next to Flea Bay that had lots of really friendly lambs, and was very picturesque. There were four of us on the tour, each couple in a double kayak. The kayaks had rudders and Dave had supposed control of that, though I happily assisted him whenever I didn't think he was going the right way. We actually got on better when the rudder was up and we could steer with the paddles. Dave had his new helmet camera on and got a few pictures with that. Please note that it has a wide angle lens and the paddles were not actually bent.

It was a gorgeous sunny day and there were a lot of seals sunning themselves on the rocks around the bay. There were a number of Little Penguins too, although most of them were out at sea feeding. Toward the end of the trip we saw a raft of penguins coming back in. After the actual canoeing we sat in the garden of the farm drinking tea and learning how the bay was a conservation area. The penguins nested on the hills and there had been a number of penguin nesting boxes placed. There were even some in the flower bed of the farm

and Kevin lifted the top of a couple and showed us the chicks. Apparently the sheep actually assist in the survival of the breeding penguins by keeping the grass short so that the penguins don't have to create highways through long grass. The highways can easily become death traps as stoats and other predators wait at the ends of them and the penguins cannot then get away. It was lovely to hear how Kevin and his wife were so committed to the conservation of the penguins and other animals in the bay. Please keep checking into the actual blog for updates rather than just reading the email or Facebook link as I might not always be able to send you a notification.