Penguins and Seals and Boulders

Our drive east from Twizel to Oamaru felt much like driving through the Okanagan. But having seen the tallest mountain and a lot of snow, we drove without many stops. Also in part to make sure we could see penguins in Oamaru when they came onto the beaches at about 4 or 5!

Eventually we made it to the beach right at sunset and ran down the path so we could get a good view of the 'hoards' of yellow-eyed penguins we hoped would be there (now we were told that there was no guarantee that we would see them but we were hopeful!). And as we ran to the viewing deck looking on the beach below, we wondered how we could see anything from 20 meters up and 80 meters away. Too bad we didn't know binoculars were recommended before we got there.

Having not seen anything, we asked another

There is a penguin in there somewhere!

couple if they had seen any penguins yet. Apparently there was a single little one in the distance, visible though his macro lens. The woman tried to describe where it was and we squinted (same as bino's right?) and squinted- and if you looked really carefully you could see a small spot turn white and black, as the penguin walked around, which was the only way to know that what we were looking at was a penguin. He was so far away that if you looked away for a second it was hard to even find him again. To the point where I was 100% sure that what I was looking at for at least 5 minutes was the penguin- until I saw him walking away from somewhere else. Only then I realized that I'd been staring at a log the whole time. The 2 foot penguin was but a speck to us. So we gave up and gave into paying $25pp to for sure see some blue-bellied fairy penguins at a little tourist place.

Seats had been set up oceanside where the penguins came on shore to nest for the night in little houses ensuring these little guys were safe enough to keep their species alive. They were truly adorable! No more than 30cm tall, they hopped up the rocks, fluffed their feathers for 10-15 minutes and then ran across the way to their little houses. And being 20 feet away made it much easier to see them.

Afterwards we drove out of town to a little free

site (that actually asked for stinkin donations) overlooking a beach.

In the morning several surfers were on the water trying to catch same smaller waves. The beach also had some very unique rock formations the pictures will help explain.

That morning we drove into town to visit the isite to see what to see near Moreaki & Oamaru! Just south was a beach called Moraeki, which had

dozens of boulders, perfectly spherical, ranging in diameter from 1-7 feet wide. They are one of those crazy NZ things that no one really understands how they happened. We figure it's where God lost his marbles making NZ! Ha ok but actually, they think its from some limestone deposits from millions of years ago, blah blah blah... and now resurfacing on this beach. Only here. Its crazy.

They were absolutely bizarre and made for some

fun pictures. I thought seeing a few boulders was going to be boring, but once I saw them, knowing they weren't man-made, I was completely in awe. But I'm not convinced everything in NZ isn't man-made just to get tourists. There's got to be a conspiracy. Mulder would totally agree with me.

From there we drove to a little peninsula where we heard you could see seals and potentially penguins up close in the wild. We saw one yellow-

eyed penguin from 10 feet away which was actually very lucky at this time of year. We then walked towards the point found seals lounging a few meters From us. We watched 3 cute little ones play together, and a whole bunch of them swim and jump and play in the ocean with many others all around. It was a very cool experience having so

many around us in the wild. Almost like we were in a National Geographic photoshoot.

On the drive back we stopped at a couple other little beaches before heading back to our campsite for the night after a very neat day experiencing the east coast.

The next couple of days we are sorry to say were extremely uneventful in Oamaru. We spent hours at the library and isite using internet and preparing for the next few days in Christchurch and the departure to Australia. We wrote blogs,

messaged and talked to our families, and spent hours attepting to find the best cloud storage. For anyone that has wanted to backup 10 GB of photos for free, tell me the best way to do it. I decided on Flickr because it has 1000 GB free of photos and videos. So a lot of time was spent uploading our last month of NZ photos to Flickr. That was my favourite thing to do. I love patience.

And that's Oamaru. Penguins. Seals. Moreaki Boulders. Library. Oh we also filled up 25L of water using the sinks in a public bathroom. That's really the only other exciting thing.

After 3 days in Oamaru we headed north to Christchurch. About halfway up we stopped at secluded little free site for the night.

We drove early to make it to Christchurch for church. We thought we'd left loads of time to get there early, but we guessed wrong. In the last 2-3 years Christchurch has been hit with a few very powerful earthquakes that killed quite a few people. So now years later, the city is still in reconstruction mode. Many of the buildings were either still in shambles or under construction. Many of the roads were closed and there was work being done everywhere. We could not imagine what it was like immediately after the quake if this was the state it was in after a couple years.

Eventually we found the isite which directed us to a Vineyard church since there was no Church of Christ. They too had just finished building a new church as the old one was unrepairable. The service was very lively and the preachers message was very truth-based which was really cool. Afterwards a lady named Christina in front of us invited us to come to her house for dinner which we were very excited to do! The church also gave us a welcome bag with coffee coupons :)

For the afternoon we found a beautiful botanical gardens park and made eggs for lunch next to a little stream. After going to a mall quickly we drove around to find Christinas house arriving at 17:59, 1 minute early.

Supper was extremely fun and we got to learn so much about Maori culture since Christina was Maori. After a couple hours, we left and went to a little campsite south of Christchurch, right next to a very loud and bright hi-way.

The next morning was a little bit depressing, as we were leaving NZ later that day. In Christchurch we cleaned up and organized our backpacks before stopping at a chiropractor, who happened to be from the states. We washed and cleaned the van, mailed some coffee and postcards home, and got fish n' chips for a last time.

Upon returning our van back, we found a little dent that somehow got there in the last few hours, and we had no idea how. That sort of dampened our spirits as we bad no idea how much it would cost us. Luckily Visa insurance should go through, or it could have cost us a bit of cash!

So we decided it would work out and walked to the Christchurch airport from Spaceship rentals. The end of our NZ experience had come to an end as we boarded the Jetstar airplane. We really loved New Zealand an incredible amount. However we are so looking forward to the destinations to come!