Kathy and Ken, Susan and Tom have arrived on the South Island, and I was able to travel with them for a few days.
Friday: shared a fabulous meal at Maharaja restaurant in Christchurch (North Indian food).
Saturday: had coffee and perused the Riccarton farmer's market and Dean's Bush. On the way out of town we dropped by the Re:Start Mall. We went to Oamaru on the coast- a surprisingly charming town with many beautiful old buildings. The main attraction for me: penguins! Both yellow-eyed penguins and blue penguins.
There is a lot of Scottish influence in the areas we traveled through- and here was another St. Andrews along the way!
Evening- around 730 or 8pm, it was time for the yellow-eyed penguins to come to shore. The beach is closed to the public after about 3pm so as not to disturb the penguins (which is great). This is at Bushy Beach near Oamaru. We were very lucky, we saw several come to shore (and then climb way up into the hills!).
These penguins are quite rare.
This was my camera (above).
The next two are Ken's photos- just awesome.
Around 9pm we headed to the blue penguin colony observation site (they come to shore as it is getting dark- since we are so far south, it gets dark closer to 10pm). The first penguins started coming to shore around 9:15pm.
We were not allowed to take any pictures of the blue penguins. Here is a picture of me and Kathy near the penguin colony area.
At this conservation area, there are a bunch of nesting boxes that the penguins like to use at night.
It was really cool to see- the penguins would fish individually during the day, then meet up maybe 1000m off-shore and "raft up". They would then come to shore together as a group. What this looked like was a rippling black area on the ocean, and then about 20-30 penguins would be thrown by the waves onto the shore, and they would walk up the beach. There was an open area that they had to cross to get the grass/woodlands and nest boxes, and again they would wait for each other, then as a group scurry across the area. Pretty fun to see their quick waddle.
Amazing: to see about 6 rafts- almost 200 blue penguins.
Not so amazing: the set up of this viewing area. It is bleacher seating at about a 45 degree angle from the beach. If you do this activity, I would recommend getting there really early to get a seat in the last row on the side closest to the ocean. We were not early, but had paid extra for the "premium" seating. As the first raft of penguins arrived and landed on the beach (the commentator was giving a play-by-play)- we couldn't see anything at all! It was a very frustrating experience (since you were hearing about what you were missing! Penguins!). It was made clear as well that standing up to see was against the rules. Luckily the docent on our side let us stand behind the last row, and then we could see the rafts approaching the shore, and the penguins.
This company has a monopoly on blue penguin colony viewing. The regular seating bleachers are simply further away from where the penguins make their crossing. There is also a pier that goes out into the water, and people gathered there for free to see the penguins come to shore (again, not as close, but not a bad option). The folks at the company are aware that the seating is angled in such a way that you can't see the penguins land from most of the seats.
Apparently there is a 2nd blue penguin colony near Oamaru, studied by this same group, but it is not open to the public (but may be more fun to view coming to shore from a distance if you knew where it was).
Despite the viewing constraints, it was neat to see so many penguins. And I think my favorite part was all the noise they made! A full on racket and ruckus all around once many of them were at their nest boxes.
Sunday:
Morning- we had a delicious brunch at Riverstone (my supervisor's recommendation)- amazing food! So good.
Then we wandered the Oamaru old buildings and farmer's market.
We were originally headed to the Otago peninsula and possibly the Catlins, but the weather seemed like it was going to worsen, so we headed south to the Moeraki Boulders and then inland to Central Otago wine country.
Highlight: Moeraki Boulders
These round rocks are concretions formed in mudstone (Paleocene mudstone); as the mudstone is worn away by the sea, the boulders pop out from the land.
Maori legends say the boulders are washed up eel baskets, calabashes (gourds) and kumara (sweet potatoes) that washed up on shore after a sailing canoe wreck (and the rocks that extend from Shag Point are the remains of the wreck per legend).
The rocks were also described by the colonists in the 1850s.
Similar rocks/concretions are found in other places in New Z (like in my post on Kaikoura), and other places in the world; but this is a cool site due to concentration of the boulders- and they look awesome.
We stayed the night in Cromwell. Weird vibe because everything in the town was built in the last 20 years (more or less)- the river was dammed in the early 1990s, forming Lake Dunstan (and flooding the old town center). This area has a history of gold being discovered around 1862.
As Ken said, "welcome to Lake Chelan!"; the temperature and the surroundings felt a lot like Chelan. One bonus- we could swim from our deck!
We had a very tasty dinner of steak, potatoes, and a huge salad- all from the Oamaru market. Really good.
Next day (Monday), I needed to head back to Christchurch. Got in a visit to Wanaka, though, and a short hike up Iron Mountain with Kathy and Ken. Short and steep! Well-utilized trail- we saw a lot of families and dogs on this trail, and were rewarded with lovely views at the top.
Here we are at the top- looking over towards Wanaka, the lake and mountains.
Kathy and I in front of manuka shrubs/trees (native to NZ with small white flowers).
We took the scenic highway from Wanaka towards Queenstown, and it was an awesome drive- very dramatic scenery. At a view point we pulled over and walked up the hill and took this picture. Queenstown is nestled in the hills by a river curve in the distance. The green patch seen on the opposite hillside to the left of Kathy is a winery. Really cool area.
As we were a little early for meeting up with Susan and Tom, Kathy had the idea to drop into Arrowtown- a small town along a river that was also part of the gold rush. It turned out to be very cute- great main street, several good-looking restaurants, and a great vibe to it. I found an Icebreaker shirt (merino wool) that was 50% off, and Ken got to get some beta on the local wineries at the wine shop. I was surprised how much there was to see in Arrowtown (and we didn't even make it to the historic Chinese worker part of town).
After a late lunch that was tasty but slow (!), I hit the road back to Christchurch.
I was very excited to see the top of Mt. Cook on my drive back!
