Sandfly Bay

At 6:35 a.m., my guides arrived in a van outside the bed and breakfast to pick me up for the morning hike. Our goal was to hike up to the penguin hide by sunrise and see a few yellow-eyed penguins make their way down the cliff and out to sea. My guides were Stephen Broni (who goes by Stevi B.), and Sharon, a guide-in-training who was mainly there to observe, from Nature Guides Otago. I noticed immediately that Stevi's accent was different, and then I realized he sounded just like Desmond on "Lost." "Are you Scottish?" I asked him. Indeed he is Scottish (and so is the city Dunedin, by the way, where the Scottish were the first to settle and most of the churches are, as a result, Presbyterian).

We drove in the pitch dark out to the Otago Peninsula, winding around sharp curves along cliffs with no guardrails, and up steep hills on gravel roads. Finally we reached Sandfly Bay, and we hiked a few miles over soft sand dunes and some rocks to get to the penguin hide. Stevi had no problem with me taking pictures or video, so I did what I could in the dark morning. We were expecting the penguins at sunrise (between 7:30 and 8 a.m.), but they surprised us and appeared a little earlier than that. Six little yellow-eyed penguins hopped down the cliff and over the rocks, crossed the beach, and disappeared into the sea. It was brilliant! While I loved the little blue penguins at Phillip Island and Oamaru, those set-ups are very commercial and tourist-driven. Sandfly Bay was completely different. We were the only people for miles around, and certainly the only three people to see those six penguins that day.

We saw these penguin tracks on our way up the beach, so we knew at least on yellow-eyed penguin had already headed into the water. The tracks are especially distinctive because of the long middle toe - see how the toenail drags far out beyond the print?

Stevi and Sharon on the beach before sunrise.

Sandfly Bay as seen from the penguin hide. The penguins came down the cliff on the left, walked across the beach almost to the right border of the photograph, and dove into the waves.

Yellow-eyed penguins are the rarest penguins in the world, and they live only in New Zealand. There are only around 4,000 yellow-eyed penguins in existence. They get their name from the yellow band around the eyes and head, and the adult's yellow eyes. Yellow-eyed penguins are also called "hoiho," a Maori name meaning "noise shouter." And indeed, we heard them well before we saw them from the penguin hide. While we waited, Stevi regaled us with stories of penguin antics from his past. He has a master's degree in marine biology specializing in penguins, has traveled to Antarctica, and has an endless fund of ridiculous stories about the penguins he's encountered. In the video below, Stevi recounts the story of Lionel, a penguin he once knew in Africa. It was dark in the hide, so the image doesn't come in very clearly, but it's the story that matters.

Here are some close-up pictures of yellow-eyed penguins (not taken by me):



Six little yellow-eyed penguins heading out to sea on Friday morning (I took this one):



1. Stevi B. explains the Maori creation myth. 2. Climbing back up the rocks after sunrise.

1. A seal peeks over her shoulder to see what I'm doing. To her left is a clump of bull kelp, which is strewn along the beach. 2. A seagull poses motionlessly on the rocks.

These tracks indicate that sea lions have been on the beach. Stevi is very involved with the sea-lion conservation effort, and from his bag he produced the family tree of Otago's first sea lion to give birth on the shore, "Mum." We followed the tracks of several sea lions, but unfortunately they had all headed back into the water. Which may be a good thing for any yellow-eyed penguins remaining on shore, according to this article.

Many thanks to Stevi B. for the excellent adventure!