Oamaru: Blue Penguins and Blue Cheese
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
59
85
Trip End
May 25, 2007
Oamaru,
New Zealand
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Oamaru has a few claims to fame, the main one being penguins. It is in close proximity to both a blue penguin nesting area and a yellow penguin nesting area. All us Northern Hemispherians are gaga for penguins so this manages to keep the town on the tourist trail.
We took a bus out to the sites and were able to see about four yellow penguins and 50 or so blue penguins (much more than what we saw in Australia). They have even set up a small "grandstand" for the tourists to sit. All the lighting is orange (apparently a frequency of light that the penguins don't see) and photos are strictly prohibited as not to blind them with flashes. We have learned on this trip that even if a place says "no flash" there is always some yahoo who doesn't know how to use their camera and flashes anyway. So, we know why they say no photos at all. The penguins were definitely cute. Julius declared himself "penguined out" at the end of the night. Good thing this was the last penguin site on the schedule.
Dad's favorite stop in Oamaru was the Whitestone cheese factory. They make over a dozen organic cheeses, their most famous being their Windsor blue cheese. 1883 calories of cheesy goodness (per 100g serving). Blue Cheese happens to be Dad's favorite kind of cheese so he was in heaven. We ate lunch there and the Pear/Blue Cheese/Walnut/Carmelized Onion pizza was the best thing I ate in the country. All of our meals were that good. We bought a bunch of cheese for the road then kept heading South to Dunedin.
