Change of plans--
It took us a few days to make a
decision but we've cancelled our flight to Auckland. Well, I suppose
postponed would be more accurate. For any one who needs to know where
we are check the itinerary page for an updated one. The long and
short of it is that we are spending an additional five days here on
the south island and scrapping our time in Auckland, in favour of
Christchurch and the Banks Peninsula. Yesterday, we bailed out of
Queenstown which we concluded was too, too young and extreme for us
(extreme sport that is0, and headed over the mountains to the east
coast. We both love the water, so it wasn't hard to decide which way
to go—into the Mt. Cook area, or to the coast. We arrived in Omarau
late afternoon with lots of time to explore and get checked in to a
motel.
The REALLY big deal is that we had a
chance to see penguins in Oamaru,—a couple of yellow-eyed from
afar, but at least a hundred little blue penguins up close. At this
managed colony you can watch them coming into the beach and making
their way up the bank, pairing up, lining up, filing through a
narrow passageway to the colony, and wiggling their cute little butts
across the grass as they find their nests. Mating and breading are
mostly over and there are chicks in the nests, which you can hear,
but not see. Both male and female feed the young regurgitated food
from their day of fishing at sea.
The blue penguin is the smallest of
all—only 10 cm in height—and weighing in at 1 kg. No, that's not
a typo—just 1 kg. A raft of about 10 or 12 penguins (that's the
name for a group of penguins, but say r-I-f-t as the kiwis do) will
approach the beach swimming hard like underwater torpedoes, then
sprint on two little feet to beat the next wave and get ashore. On
the way up the rocks they stop and clean and preen every nook and
cranny while also cooling down, before climbing their way like little
paddlers up the bank. It's the cutest thing to watch. They've channeled them into one passageway under a low fence, so they all go
in the same direction toward the colony. Their social behaviour is
curious—they queue up, waiting for something (who knows what a
penguin thinks) and then rush through in groups to the bushy area
where nests have been constructed for them. Unfortunately no photos
are allowed, so check here for pics of this event. But the best is
when they start to “socialize”. It does sound like a great party,
with prolonged grunting and squealing (no, not that—mating is over)
and we could hear them a kilometer away as we walked into town. Who
knew?
This afternoon we travelled north and
stopped at Timaru for a couple of beach walks and lunch. Caroline Bay
is touted as the best beach on the south island and it is certainly
the best we've seen. The wind was cool, so no lazing around, but
there is a great park with an outdoor apiary—you walk inside where
they are both cages and birds flying freely (just be careful not to
let anything escape) and we had a great time watching the parrots,
'keets and cockatoos, budgies and some pheasants. We tried two
stages—three if you count the walking—of the adult fitness trail
but that was too much like work!
Tonight we are in Lincoln, south of
Christchurch, an small town (the Ag university is here) not even on
the map, at a motel that was rebuilt following the second
earthquake--with a perfectly equipped kitchen. Margaret is tired of
eating out, so she says she will cook for the next few days! From
here we will be able to explore the Banks Peninsula including Ataroa
and then move on to Christchurch for our last two days. We'll fly
home directly from there.
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