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After leaving the internet place without the snoring man seeing me I had a wander around Dunedin. The highlight in my opinion - Starbucks - sad, yes, but it's been a while. One grande skimmed latte with an extra shot of espresso and vanilla later and I was on my way. Not too much to the main street - they seem to be pretty similar the world over in Westernised countries, but stopped for a while to read up in the Lonely Planet and decide where to head next.
Whilst sat in a cafe I flicked through a magazine which was on the table and found a very pertinent article entitled "7 things I've learned in my 30s". There were 2 that made me chuckle and seemed particularly relevant to me and my current situation, so I thought I'd share them with you:
No 4: You're too old to share a dorm room in a youth hostel. I discovered I'm now at an age where if I 'm sleeping with 6 strangers, I want to hand pick them. If there are 6 strangers in my bedroom again, it'd better be more 'Eyes Wide Shut' than 'Eyes tight closed cos drunk German has come in at 2am and turned all the lights on again!'
No 7: You can never own too many pairs of shoes. As the old saying goes 'If the shoe fits, maybe you should buy 2 pairs.
By now it was about 1500 and I decided to head out of town and down the coast along the Southern Scenic Route and see how far I got before looking for a bed for the night. Having seen one of the brown symbols indicating said road, I could find no more and an hour later ended up in almost the same place as I'd left from, albeit slightly more stressed. So, I pulled over and thought things through - it was now the beginning of rush hour and I opted to stay another night at the YHA and head out in daylight tomorrow, but alas everything was conspiring against me and the hostel had no beds left.
So there was nothing for it but to open the map and stick a pin in. There was a little place heading up the coast, so out with the guide book, found a hostel, called and they had beds and set off.
I left town on the no1 heading up the east coast and stopped at a place called Shag Point - had to really!! From here next stop was Oamaru, where I was staying and I arrived at the hostel at 1900, dumped my stuff and knocked up a mean tuna salad. When you travel solo it is inevitable that your food will become repetitive as if you buy a whole lettuce for example, it will last a few days.
It was obviously providence that I couldn't escape Dunedin as I had inadvertently ended up in the penguin capital of NZ and the only time you can see them is at dusk.
I got in the car and headed out to the Blue Penguin colony in the harbour, with fairly low expectations, only to be really surprised at how good the next couple of hours would be. You have to pay to enter the colony and there is a fenced nesting site with boxes and a viewing grandstand, which I thought was a bit naff at first. We were all told to sit very still, keep quiet and not use cameras or mobile phones. We then had a little bit of spiel and waited for the tiny creatures to come out of the sea, after a hard days fishing when they often swim 50km in a day. The sea was really crashing on the rocks and as the first 6 arrived I was amazed to see them waddle up the rocks without losing their footing or being smashed against them.
Blue penguins are the smallest breed, stand about 30cm high and are only found naturally in the Southern Hemisphere. They usually mate for life, but there is about a 10-11% divorce rate!! They leave at sunrise and swim all day, being able to doze at sea whilst floating on the surface and return at night. A collective in the water is known as a raft and by the time I left 73 had appeared.
They came out of the water in dribs and drabs, standing on the rocks to oil themselves and dry out before heading to the nesting area. One poor little mite came out to the other side of the viewing area and just stood there for about half an hour - definitely not the smartest in the bunch.
A few people turned up late and sat behind me and there was a very stupid annoying woman who decided we all needed a running commentary on the bleedin' obvious, and in a loud voice. So I politley asked her to keep quiet - she was not happy! Oh well.
Sorry there are no photos, but not allowed.
When I got back to the hostel I had a couple of beers with 3 young lads from the Midlands - I felt like their mum and am probably old enough!!
Today (17th) I met 2 Canadians at breakfast and when I asked them where in Canad they replied Saskatchewan, which is the province I was born in. It transpired that the lady (Val) had grown up in Maryfield, where mum and dad lived for 2 years. This is quite astonishing as the population of Maryfield is about 200 and as the man said, lots of people in Saskatchewan will not know where it is!! They were about mum and dad's age and knew lots of the people mum and dad knew at the time, some of whom they are still in touch with. We exchanged e mail addresses and we'll stay in touch and see what other mutual acquaintances we have!!
Off to drive to Queenstown to meet Nicole after her trek - see you there Sherry xx
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