Most of the Peninsula Valdes is parkland or privately owned, and many of the beaches are off limits unless you are on some sort of tour – this is strictly enforced. All roads are gravel so driving is quite slow. We had to leave early this morning to drive up to the north end of the peninsula. We visted a private ranch that has a huge Magellan penguin rookery on their property.
On our way we also had to Dodge the wildlife. There are herds of Guanaco everywhere as well as sheep, martineta and the occasional armadillo. The result was a bit of a stressful drive.
We did arrive safely at the Estancia San Lorenzo (only a little bit late) for our tour. The estancia is a traditional Patagonian sheep ranch, raising Australian merino sheep.
The nature reserve boasts a colony of more than 600,000 Magellan penguins. It is largest colony in the world. We ended up with a private tour with Nadia as no one else was booked for this morning. The penguins were everywhere!
It’s weird but cute.
Tomorrow we tour a different part of the peninsula in search of more exciting wildlife.
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