Oamaru
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2006
1
158
177
Trip End
Jun 12, 2007
Oamaru,
New Zealand
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Our next stop was the Moeraki Boulder, surreal rock spheres sat in the surf. We nearly ended up paying $2 to see them via a restaurant's walkway before we realised that we'd missed the DOC car park turn off! It was a really pretty short walk down the beach, with small gorse covered "cliffs" on one side and rolling waves on the other. The boulders themselves are really odd and definitely worth the stop, they are pretty big, probably about a meter across, and with the surf tumbling around them very pretty
Oamaru 01
.Back on the road we were soon in Oamaru. We had a little wander around that evening but left most of it for the following day, along with some penguin spotting. The historical district of Oamaru is built of a white stone which is apparently soft to carve but when it is put out in the elements is very strong and durable, which means all the buildings are made of ornately carved white stone, making it an attractive town.
The following day at about 15.00 we headed to Bushy Beach to do some Yellow-Eyed penguin spotting. An hour later we hadn't seen one penguin and my feet were getting numb! We persevered a little longer and saw a couple sliding out of the water and waddling up the beach, we weren't that close though and were glad of our binoculars. We gave up shortly after that! Oamaru is pretty unique in have two different types of penguins, which handily come in at different times. The Yellow-Eyed penguins are free but you have to pay to see the Blue penguins and as we were feeling cold and a bit miserable anyway we decided to head back to the hostel and warm up instead!
Up to Christchurch next, our last stop before flying to Melbourne!
Dean: We had a few photos of the Moeraki boulders (and one of Melbourne) but the camera card got corrupted and I could only save one of the pictures :-(
