30th March - 1st April

We spent the morning of Friday 1st April strolling around the lovely town of Oamaru. Many of the grand old buildings that are synonymous with Oamaru were built during the 1880s-1890s from brilliant white limestone quarried nearby. Some of these buildings are really impressive. http://www.visitoamaru.co.nz/?welcome
The afternoon was spent driving around the local area with Ian as our guide. We drove by the place where some scenes from the recent film 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' were filmed and The Elephant Rocks. http://www.new-zealand-pictures.co.nz/elephant-rocks-waitaki-valley-north-otago-378-pictures.htm

We also saw the farm where Ian farmed crops and around 1400 sheep for nearly 30 years.
During the evening Terry and I went to the Blue Penguin Colony to see the Little Blue Penguins come home for the night. This is the first time we have seen them out of the water - and they are really small, only 10" high and weigh around 1kilo. They appeared out of the sea and waddled up a ramp to their nesting boxes. A really good thing to see.
Tomorrow we head off again. It is Terry's turn at the wheel and the choice is: do we take the easy route along the highway or risk life and limb crossing the Dansey's Pass. The driver's decision ....

We left Dunedin on Thursday 31st March to drive to Oamaru, further up the east coast. As often as we could we left the main highway to drive along the side coastal roads. And we are so glad we did - we drove along some stunning roads, some practically on the beach. We saw some beautiful deserted beaches and had wonderful views from the headlands





We stopped at Boulder Beach near Moeraki. http://www.moerakiboulders.com/ These were amazing and some were taller than me.





Lunch was at Fleur's Place, allegedly the most famous eating house in New Zealand often graced with the presence of the rich and famous. It looked like an old shack but the food served there has a worldwide reputation. http://www.fleursplace.com/. It is really famous for seafood but I couldn't resist trying an old New Zealand dish - mutton bird. This was favoured by the early settlers and called such because it reminded them of mutton. It didn't remind me of that! So you could say I ate a sea bird as it's real name is Sooty Shearwater. It was actually quite nice although a tad tough and stringy. We are staying in Oamaru with Ian Grant. Ian is Heather's father (as in Heather and Mike who we stayed with in Titirangi, near Auckland). Ian has made us very welcome.

On Wednesday 30th March our day started fairly early as we were picked up from our motel at 8.40am to be taken to the harbour for a wild life cruise on the 'Monarch' along Otago Harbour to Tairoa Head at the end of the Otago Peninsula. Luckily warm jackets were provided as it turned out to be colder than we expected on the water and they also provided binoculars which was lucky as I forgot to take mine.
Apart from seeing 3 types of albatross - the Northern Royal, the White Capped and Bullers, we saw sea lions, lots of New Zealand fur seals,





many sorts of different seabirds, white faced herons and some Stewart Island shags nesting on the cliffs. Unfortunately most of the shags had left.





But the highlight of the trip was seeing a Royal Penguin. These are usually to be seen about 400kms away from Dunedin on the McQuarrie Islands, and this viewing was only the third for the 'Monarch'. It wasn't at all bothered by our presence as we were able to get very close to it.





During the afternoon we had a walk in the Dunedin Botanical Garden. I was surprised to see so many plants at such a low lattitude. There was an amazing aviary there housing many native New Zealand and Australian birds. Many native birds that are bred there are relocated to areas where they used to populate but where numbers had declined.

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