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Oamaru( em alone)
Well it was a sad farewell to Sam in the morn, a little scared to be on my own but also excited for times ahead. I hope Sam will be ok too and not go mad in little Lake Tekapo.
Arrived a lot earlier than i expected ...though as usual didn't really look at ticket properly anyway. Got dropped off right outside hostel ...ideal! Really nice hostel (Empire hotel) friendly owners. Chucked my stufff down and headed to the i site ( tourist info) couple doors down. Booked up for the penguins and took a stroll down to the harbour ....well just headed for the water and realised there was a harbour also stumpled across the old harbour buildings all made of Oamaru stone (limestone of the area). (Oamaru is basically famous for three things from what i could gather: its historic Oamaru stone buildings, its award winning publc gardens and the penguin colonies).
Went and took a look at the Public gardens, and saw some more of the historic buildings along the way. The gardens were surprisingly very impressive( i think i assumed because its quite a small town there wouldn't be alot there...one should never presume!!!) I felt very relaxed strolling through them; though there was lots going on, little paths everywhere , different statues and themes. It was very pretty and had a mixture of, victorian, japanese, woodlands , ponds and more.
After dinner alone, which was very pleasant...no arguing over how to cook things and what to eat!!! I was picked up for my penguin tour; as they come ashore at night for nesting after a hard days fishing. First stop was the yellow eyed colony which only consisted of about half a dozen at this site.( time approx 6:30pm) As we walked along the cliff path to the hides the cliffs were quite high and very steep, again i assumed; we wouldn't get very close to them. I stood at the first look out point and couldn't see anything, then looked around the corner and realised there was one just metres away all the way up the top of the cliff( and i'd also walked past it and others on the walk down!!). So back i went and we could see them pretty close to the path, two of them preening each other, think one of them may have been a juvenile. There was quite a few people darting about watching them, there was also another couple of them who were only 1-2 metres away( in the picture) there so beautiful. Also quite funny creatures they appeared to be standing with there wings out almost as if they wanted to fly( reminded me of the scene in Titanic!!!, shame i couldn't capture it.) maybe they were just drying themselves off!!!
We could also see a large black blob loloping about down on the beach, which i think was a seal; it didn't really appear to be getting anywhere but it was definetley moving!!!
Next stop the Little blue Penguin colony right next door to the harbour( unfortunetley no pictures of these were allowed). This was a commercialsied site though they are wild and were in there natural regime/habitat there was a visitors centre there and a manmade habitat for them to nest had been built, consisting of boxes at the bottom of the cliff.
(Time approx 7:15pm) We arrived a little way through the commentary, and took our seats in the stage built to view there bedtime arrival!!! There were already many of them on the rocks right infront of us, they were about 15 metres away and are the smallest penguin at 30cm tall, so i couldn't see there facial details. Though even from there they looked so cute and i also found them very amusing. They just appeared to be milling/waddling about, maybe catching there breath. Then after a few minutes one of them made the decision to move and slowly they all sorted rounded up together to cross the path to bed!!! As they appraoched the path i could swear the 'leader' stopped to look both ways before crossing then crossed with care!! As usual there had to be an odd ball who as they crossed branched off from the group looking as if it was heading towards us...then finally turned to go though the fence on the otherside into the colony.
As this group was crossing, we spotted some others coming out off the water, looked like a pretty rough ride, i wouldn't say they swam out itwas more like they were getting washed up and had to get to there feet as best they could!!! They looked so small and defenceless as they waddled up the beach, as they got on to the rocks and shock themselves off i was quite surprised to see they were fine and in one piece. The same sort of routine occured with milling about being top priority, then the crossing with again another little b***** going off at a tangent!!!
From what i could see that night, there were about 50-100 penguins coming ashore, though at christmas time we were told there could be more than a upto a thousand i think. At this time of year, due to the number of them they spread further a field to nest; crossing the road to the residential area.Nesting in peoples garden sheds and under there verandas!!! How cool would that be!!! Though apparently they stink the place out!!
After the penguins he took us on a quick trip around the historic buildings of the town, most of which were built of Oamaru stone and comparing them to our historic bulidings weren't really that old, but a lot of them were pretty impressive.
Early bed felt knackered, was bloody freezing in bed though. Pootled about in the morn, popped in the bank, only to find out stillwas owed some money!! Then hopped on the bus to Dunedin.
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