Shhh--there it is.

Miss A, the woman who's been looking after me during my stay in Oamaru, took me and some other backpackers on a drive down the coast this afternoon to a much less frequented Yellow-Eyed Penguin area, approached via a series of winding gravel roads. She said she used to take her boys to this peninsula and picnic with the penguins, decades ago. She lamented the changes that have come to the area over the years, fences and notices and viewing hides, all arguably necessary because of increased traffic.

We parked and headed down a maintained trail to the water below the peninsula. She and I were walking along, I was watching the ground as we moved through the grass when she stopped and said softly, "Look. Here they are. They are all around us." I looked up and this one wasn't 3 meters away, standing still in the grass. I looked around. They were everywhere. A chick sitting contented under a set of wooden steps. An adult holding sentry over an entrance to the bushes where the nests would be. A mum with two large chicks on the next hill, lying together, preening and looking around. Just being penguins. It was for me a moment of pure joy.

Pictures of the chicks on Flickr.