On Saturday Tommy and I went with Alastair and Jon to Myviken to count nesting penguins in the colony. There are new chicks hatching every day and the colony is a busy hive of activity with the partners sharing the chores of sitting on the nest/egg protecting the chicks and going out foraging for food. The ones that have been fishing all day come back to the colony through the tussock grass ‘tunnels’ in the late afternoon in groups of about 10. Literally you can spend hours just sitting and watching the activity and listening to the wonderful noises made. The smell is not that enjoyable but everything else makes up for that.

Afterwards we walked up on a hillock overlooking a lake with furry’s and the colony and watched the world go by in tussock armchairs. As we were sitting there a pair of sooty albatross kept on swooping around getting lower and lower until they dissappear from view over the side of the cliff.

We crept to the side of the cliff and looked over to see to our amazement that there were 4 beautiful birds perched on a ledge 20 foot below us.

When the clouds started getting lower and darker it was cold sitting there so we went back to the hut where we met up with Rob and pitched our tent next to a beautiful waterfall. Tommy bivvied out and didn’t get to sleep until 1am as the clouds cleared and it was a wonderful night for watching the stars.