Banks Peninsula Track

Kiwilizzie and I were to have started the Banks Peninsula Track from Onuku this morning but I had a meeting in Christchurch at midday so we couldn't start until this evening. The people who run the track were really accommodating and agreed to pick us up in Akaroa and deliver us the second hut.

We arrived without mishap but were too late to do the organised walk to the penguin nesting boxes. Fortunately the farm owner told us that some of the penguins sleep under the wool shed and she said that if we went down there on dark we would probably see some under the building.

How right she was - my first ever sighting of a White Flippered penguin.

The White Flippered penguin (Eudyptula minor albosignata) is a sub-species of the Little Blue penguin - distinctive white markings on its wings are what differentiate it. They only nest on Banks Peninsula and Motunau Island and are native to NZ.