Unesco World Heritage Peninsula Valdés, in Argentina´s Patagonia, is one of the finest wildlife reserves in South America.  From June to December, southern right whales come to the sheltered waters of Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San José to breed and bear their young.  The southern right whales, so named because they were the ¨right¨ whale to kill, were facing extinction but now over 1100 visit these waters each year.

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That is why we travelled 20 hours by bus (and back again) to Puerto Madryn.  The whales did not disappoint.  They can be observed from the town jetty and from other vantage points around the coast, frolicking with their newborns just metres away.  To see and hear these 20 meter, 10 tonnes animals so close to the shore you can almost touch them is really something.

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Also on the peninsula are penguins, sea lions, elephant seals and dolphins, but it was the whales we came to see.

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