In June our tour left at 3.15pm. I imagine that in November (summer & daylight saving) it will leave about an hour later.

Hi there, thank you for your message and interest in our colony. The penguins we have in the bay are the White flippered penguins for sure! The white flippered penguins are a variant of the blue penguins and they all belong to the same specie "australasian little penguin", the smallest in the world!! Here at Pohatu we have the biggest colony of little penguins on the mainland of NZ. They are found only in Canterbury area (region). Please note that at the time of your visit it will be near the end of the moult season so we should still have adults moulting in their nest on the land. Part of the colony will be already gone at sea. Looking forward to your visit!! Also please make sure you book in advance to secure a spot on one of our tours... Kindly, Geraldine & team

They are really helpful, do email them if they can arrange something for you. It’s their private property where they help look after the penguins.

Yes I agree with the replies above

Hi there, Yes there is , We pick people up from the Akaroa main wharf on cruise ship days here, the tour starts from there with a scenic Drive over to pohatu penguin habitat, We have 2 land based tour options the 2 hour nature tour or the longer version (same place) 4 hour nature tour- we see more scenery and do more walking on this one. Both visit our funny sheep and get to see penguins up close as we monitor the nesting boxes, taking in the beautiful scenery of the outer coast of Banks peninsula. Note; March is the only month penguins are likely not around. We also have a Sea kayaking trip, with the scenic drive from the main wharf on cruise ship days. Hope that's helpful. Thanks kindly Averil

Bonjour. En effet fin aout devrait être un bon moment pour observer les manchots. La saison de reproduction devrait doucement demarrer. Les adultes commenceront a choisir leur nid et a pondre leurs oeufs. Jusqu'a la mi fevrier ils seront dans la baie. C'est toujours different d'une annee sur l'autre bien entendu mais ce sont les grandes lignes. Vous pouvez peut être nous contacter un peu plus proche de la date. Cordialement. Kevin.

Hi there, The 12 midday kayak tour is 4 hours total, We spend an average of one and a half hours on the water. Depending on sea conditions on the day and how comfortable everybody feels. The tour starts with the scenic 4WD in our minibus over the hills to Pohatu Marine reserve. Dolphins and Penguins and our seal colony are frequently scene as well and many different native coastal sea birds , But wildlife does what it wants and we have a wild life code we live by as not to disrupt their natural behavior. We are Doc Smart operators. We don't do swimming with the dolphins, we just watch them from the kayaks when they choose to come close. Which is usually a pretty cool experience. Same with the penguins sometimes they are in the water and sometime sitting around on the rocks. There are specific tours from the harbor cruises in Akaroa that run swimming with the dolphins tours, if you want to get in the water with them they provide very thick wet suits. I suggest when choosing a swimming with the dolphins activity to choose a DOC Smart operator, as this is a qualification given to operators that have done a course with the Department of conservation and commit to their activities having minimal disturbance on marine mammal behavior. Hope that's helpful, Thanks kindly Averil ( nature guide, Pohatu penguins)

Hi there, Sorry we don't do pick ups from Christchurch, But the French connection Shuttle works well with all Pohatu penguin day tours. They get you to Akaroa around 10am-10.30am and depart around 4pm , it gives us time to get you back to your bus. It also fits in well with the harbor cruise tours on Akaroa harbor. But I think if you wanted to do two tours in the same day, our tour and the harbor cruise you would need to be here early morning and late afternoon, there are taxi company's that can take you from Christchurch, or you could hire a car. Hope that's helpful. Thanks kindly Averil.

Hi there, Thanks for your question, Sometimes we have penguins in Rehabilitation and Shireen or one of the guides will feed these penguins in front of you, Shireen only touches these penguins to feed them, we never cuddle or pet them because we want them to go back into the wild and not imprint on us. You can see penguins up close on our tours in the nesting sites it's a very controlled manner we get to do this, only when we are monitoring with a guide we just have a quick look to see how they are doing, no touching, I know they are really cute and the chicks are really fluffy and it's hard to resist , But it's better for the penguins if we don't touch them unless we have to for an emergency situation. Mostly because we don't want to stress these birds out. It could be very harmful. And also penguins have very sharp beaks and it's not something pleasant to be attacked with, they are aggressive little birds when they feel threatened , even the times we have had to rescue penguins in the past have left permanent scars on a few of the guides . But all penguins have different personality's so I can't judge them all. All and all it's better for penguins if us humans don't touch them or get to close to them in the wild, they have to live their lives and we don't want to make it harder for the little guys. Thanks So much for your question, it's one we get asked quiet a bit when on the tours. You can cuddle our pet sheep though... They love a good scratch under the chin.

Hello and thank you for your interest. We are not running the Evening Penguin tours at the moment because it is the end of the breeding season and not many penguins are coming a shore but there are still a number of penguins still on land in the nesting sites going through the moult. We run several day tour which you can found out about through our web site. These tours are educational and research based, where you will join a research team and actively participate in protection work by monitoring nest sites and collecting data. Thanks again and we are looking forward to hearing from you. Joey