Peel Forest and Penguin Spotting

Like most of the east coast, the vast majority of the forests of Canterbury have been cleared for agricultural uses.  There are only a few forests left with old growth behemoths like the totara tree below.  Peel Forest contains the majority of these ancient trees in the Canterbury region.  So we decided to give it a go.

This totara tree is over 1000 years old.  It was well established when the first major Māori migration reached the South Island.


Its truck is 8.4 meters in circumference, and it towers above us at over 31 meters tall.


These monsters once dotted the landscape wherever fertile soil was available.  Most were logged for timber, or burned by Māori during hunts, or to clear land for kumara (sweet potato) farming.


It was quite warm, so we decided to skip a longer walk Peel Forest, and head towards the coast.  With slightly better weather, we hoped to have success spotting yellow-eyed penguins at Oamaru. 

Yellow-eyed penguins nest year round at Bushy Beach, and they can be seen coming ashore a few hours before sunset.  These are the rarest penguins, having only a scattering of small colonies on NZ coasts.  We parked, had some dinner, and did the short walk to the lookout.  People are not allowed on the beach during nesting season. 

At about 7pm we were getting tired after waiting for 45 minutes with the sun in our eyes.  All of the sudden a very fast ripple shoots across the water right next to the beach.  A penguin pops its head out for a look around, zips up and down a few times, and waddles up out of the water.  Their awkwardness on land is more than made up for by their agility underwater.  These little birds are fast, with sustained speeds faster than Michael Phelps's 5-second swim sprint.

They look so small on the empty beach.  They only weigh 5-6kg (less than 15lbs) and stand less than 20 inches tall.



You can see the yellow crest over each eye.


The Māori call them Hoiho, which is a close approximation of their call.  When they come ashore they sing a loud high pitched “I’m home!” song with a little dance.  Nesting as pairs, this helps them find each other, and generally lets them cool off after a long swim.  Without the cooling effect of the seawater, they can easily overheat on land.