Oamaru

A short bus journey down the coast from Timaru, Oamaru is an even smaller town but with plenty of character to hold us here for a few days. On our first night here we bought some huge green-lipped mussels and fresh bread from a local shop and became the envy of the entire hostel as we sat and ate them with a creamy, garlicky sauce. We were going to take a trip out to see some blue-backed penguins but decided that we were a bit too lazy that day and so just sat in front of a video for the evening!

Botanical gardens

Next morning though was another matter entirely we got up before 6am and left the hostel for a 40 minute walk down to the coast, to a place called Bushey beach to see the Yellow-Eyed penguins. We luckily got a lift from a friendly local guy for the last mile or so and arrived in time to see the penguins leaving their nests in the cliff face and waddling down to the sea. A few of them even walked within 5 feet of us so we got some excellent photos of the little fellas. These particular penguins are the world's rarest, with only an estimated 4,000 still alive, so we were very lucky indeed to see them. The colony we saw consisted of about 30 adults and 10 young. That morning we also saw sea lions taking their daily constitutionals along the beach and more than a few seals swimming out at sea. Apparently you can sometimes sea dolphins swimming out there too, but we didn't.

Lou gets in the penguin mood

After watching the sunrise over the cliffs we headed back to town for pastries and coffee for brekky. That afternoon we found a great little cheese shop & purchased some local mature blue & some creamy Camembert, had it with some bread later on with a nice bottle of NZ shiraz.

Our last day in Oamaru was Good Friday and it is fair to say that the place was truly like a ghost town. All cafes, shops, bakeries and even pubs(!) were shut so there really was NOTHING to do. Model travellers as we are, we looked for something free and ended up having a look at the Botanical gardens. They were beautiful to walk round, especially as all the colours are turning 'autumn' and there were leaves on the ground to stomp through! Had a walk up the road onto main high street & found an impressive looking Basilica Eventually we found a pub open, only to find that you were only allowed to buy a drink if you were eating there, or 'had the intention of eating.' We agreed that we both 'had the intention' of eating, but managed to get in a quick pint and sneak out before these intentions could be acted on.

P..p..p..photo a penguin

Seeing as how we'd missed Shrove Tuesday, and today was Good Friday (well, there's an Easter link of sorts there, isn't there?) we had pancakes for dinner. Mmmmmmmmmmm

Penguin

Sandstone buildings