Days 101-103 - Mt Cook - Oamaru
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
66
70
Trip End
Mar 27, 2008
Oamaru,
New Zealand
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The rest of the journey to the coast was very scenic and we found a beautiful lake where we decided to stop for a while. We got our chairs out of the van and Dean made some tea while I busied myself making a few sandwiches. We sat outside drinking tea and enjoying our picnic. It was a gorgeous spot and would have been a lovely place to camp for the night. It is legal to just park up and camp anywhere in New Zealand, except in specific places where there are signs telling you not to do so. We haven't done this yet, always choosing to pay for a campsite where there are facilities we can use.
We got to Oamaru in the late afternoon and booked into the Top 10 holiday park there. It is a bigger town than I thought it would be but seems quite a nice place. The reason we came here (it was my choice) is: - Penguins! There is a colony of blue penguins and a colony of yellow-eyed penguins here and we are hoping to see them. There are some public gardens, smack beside the campsite and we had a lovely walk through them that evening. It is a bit windy though and therefore a bit cold. It was too cold to sit outside that evening and we spent a bit of time in the warm kitchen. The great thing about all the Top 10 holiday parks is the kitchens are open 24 hours, not the case in other places where they lock them at 10 or 11pm. It's a bummer when you have forgot you left some food in the fridge and you fancy a late-night snack. Dean watched some TV in the kitchen while I tried to catch up on my diary a bit, I have fallen behind.
The next day was relaxing and we caught up on a few chores. Then we had a stroll around the town and around the harbour (which is lovely), looked around the shops and eventually treat ourselves to some fish and chips. Unfortunately we couldn't get any blue cod, (they didn't sell it) and it was nowhere near as nice as the fish we had in Kaikoura. We went to the supermarket and our campsite has an oven so we bought a pizza to have later that evening while we watched a DVD.
We set off at about 6pm to go and see the yellow-eyed penguins that apparantly start to come ashore around 7pm. There were loads of people already there and we couldn't get anywhere near the hide because it was too full. You are not supposed to go onto the beach after 3pm because the penguins are very shy and if they see people, they won't come ashore. Likewise, if they are already on the shore, they will go back into the water - they are easily frightened. There is a big long pathway on the cliff top, above the beach and it was absolutely blowing a gale up there; it was freezing. It was hard to see anything at all because tears were streaming out of my eyes due to the wind. It wasn't a great view because it was very high above the beach so I was a bit disappointed as I had expected we would be able to get closer to them.
Anyway, we stood there for about 45 minutes and we saw three penguins waddling shore and a seal that was asleep on the beach. We went back to the van seconds before we both got frostbite - Jeez, it was cold up there.
It was so cold, we decided not to put the back awning up and try making the bed the other way tonight (this is the first time we have done this since we had the van). The bed looked really cosy in there but we lost 30% space inside the van which was a bit annoying. However, it is much warmer and much less noisy (this campsite is situated beside a busy road and the traffic sounds do your head in, this is not why we came to New Zealand). After dark, we had a drive down to the harbour to see if we could see any of the blue penguins wandering around. We may as well while we are here, we are leaving tomorrow. We had just about drove into the town when we remembered that we had left the pizza on top of the van to keep it cool. We laughed all the way back to the campsite as we immediately turned the van around and set off to find it. Dean spotted it on the road just outside the site, it must have slid off as we turned the corner. He managed to retrieve it just before a big truck ran it over. We examined the cellophane wrapper to make sure it was still intact - it was. Amazingly, nothing seemed to have run it over while we had been gone. So, off we went again with the pizza now safely in the van but we didn't see any more penguins that evening.
We went back to camp, watched our DVD and ate our pizza (which was delicious). It was much warmer with the boot door shut but the lack of space irritated me.
