NZ Continued: Driving the Coast & More Penguins

A continuation of our travels through NZ...

[6 October, 2011]
After a super exciting penguin-filled evening in Oamaru, we decided to spend a bit of time exploring the charming little town by day. It was an easy walk to the harbour from our hostel, past plenty of well-preserved Victorian buildings and gardens. The historic arhcitecture must have inspired the town's residents, as next to the traditional was bits of Steampunk everywhere (if you're into Steampunk, Oamaru's the place for you!). We were especially entertained by the coin-operated locomotive that spit out flames and made train noises as it chugged along on the spot in front of "Steampunk HQ". In fact, it totally scared the crap out of us when we dropped a coin in the night before and it came alive! (Much less scary by day).

We did a bit of wandering, visiting the (vacant by day) penguin bird houses by the harbour and a street with craftspeople (a homemade whisky maker!). The guys went back to get our car and Jenny and Dayle continued their stroll along the waterfront towards the penguin colony (we were on a mission to get some cute little stuffed penguins to accompany us on our trip). We were halfway there when an older man called over to us from behind the chainlink fence of what looked like a boatyard: "Hey! Do you girls want to see the penguins?"

Errr. Jenny and I looked at each other, half wondering if it was some elaborate pick-up line, or worse. It was however, broad daylight in the middle of a tiny town, and curiosity got the best of us, so we went over to find out more (and quickly felt sheepish for being so suspicious!). Don was a nice older guy with a soft spot for the penguins, and told us that he thought it was a bit ridiculous that they charge visitors so much money to watch the penguins at the colony, when they're actually living in everyone's backyards in town! Don led us around the boatyard, where there were little boxes built everywhere to help the little blue penguins with their nesting. He lifted up the lids on the boxes so we could "get a photo" amd sure enough, inside each was one or two, slightly stunned but very blue, tiny penguins nestled inside! The little nocturnal birds didn't look too happy to be disturbed, but Don reassured us they don't mind, and they're actually not afraid of people at all. In fact, when big trucks arrive at the boatyard early in the morning to deliver oil and gas (ahem, petrol), the penguins will get up out of their nests, jump around and flap their little flipper-wings, "scolding" those damn truck drivers for waking them up! Don was a fantastic tour guide and we learned that some of the penguins have been returning to the same nests for 14 years (though now it's the younger generation owning the nest), and that once there's chicks hatched in the nest, only one of the adults will head out to sea for food and the other will babysit. I gather we were there just as they were starting their nesting for the year - great timing! It was incredibly cool to learn about the amazing little birds from the locals' perspective. And all it cost us was a little bit of razzing from the staff in the office, when Don brought us in and introduced us as "two girls from France who think the French are going to win the World Cup!" Well worth it, in my opinion. :)

Later on that day we hopped in the car and drove along the east coast to Dunedin, one of New Zealand's bigger cities, taking in the interesting Moeraki Boulders along the way-- a bunch of perfectly round rocks sitting at the seashore of Moeraki Beach. According to Maori legend, the boulders were left behind by an ancient giant canoe of the Gods which crashed on the shore after they journeyed across the Great Ocean of Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean) to what is now New Zealand-- the boulders being the canoe's cargo, the gourds holding water for the journey (or read the better explained version). Or if, you're looking at the big rocks purely on face value, they're old and quite interesting as some of them have been split open like giant solid chocolate eggs (OK, so we may have have the Cadbury factory ahead in Dunedin, a little bit on our minds!) on a very pretty beach.

We didn't get to Dunedin until late in the afternoon, and we couldn't get there fast enough to devour the cheese bounty we'd picked up along the way at the delightful Evansdale Cheese Factory, where we sampled about 10 varieties of cheese and a heated cheese debate took place on which cheese was yummiest-- the French voting for the stinkiest one possible, the Canadians voting for the gooeiest mild brie. Well, in the end, we bought three huge chunks of the stinky blue, the brie, and an awesome smoked brie, and had a feast in our (empty, of course) hostel room under the shadow of our bunk beds at the Stafford YHA. We all agreed that although none of us enjoyed sleeping in hostels, we could deal with it if we were putting our savings towards delicious cheese.


That evening we explored a bit of Dunedin, known for its ornate old buildings. They were indeed beautiful but perhaps we'd had our fill of Victorian architecture in Oamaru. We had originally planned to go to the Cadbury Factory for a chocolate tour (sadly it was already closed!) and also to head out on a nature tour of the Otago Peninsula to see the rare and elusive penguins (!) but with that checked off our lists, and not feeling enthused enough about the albatrosses we could also see on the peninsula, we opted for another kind of sightseeing.... Dunedin's pubs! And indeed, sitting in a quaint pub by a fire, sampling the local refreshments was the best type of sightseeing one could do on a cold, early-spring Friday night in southern NZ.

[More to come... in the meantime, check out some of our photos and videos posted now on our Flickr page!]

On A Penguin and Mountain High

Hello from gorgeous and cold New Zealand! It's been a crazy couple of days already, but since we scored some free wifi, we thought we'd take advantage and write a little update. 

We arrived in Christchurch to freezing cold weather and just an hour after an aftershock (damn!) on the 4th. Met up with our friends Stephane and Jenny and we're picking up where we left off in 2008 when we parted ways in Melbourne- they're perfect travel companions. Got our car and cruised around Christchurch as Disaster Papparazzi (hey, I call it photojournalism!) -- seeing all sorts of cracked, condemned, and empty houses, shops, and streets. The city centre is fenced off, crumbled, and deserted, and there are workmen about but that's all -- Adrian said it well when he remarked it felt like something out of a zombie movie!

From there, we drove inland on a dreary and cold afternoon after a big breakfast at Denny's (yes, the American chain!!) towards Mount Cook, watching the mountains in front of us get taller and taller, and oohing and aahing and stopping the car every time we saw a snow-capped peak peeking out from the clouds. And nearly every landscape belonged to us-- there's a certain feeling around the South Island that I've experienced only in the Aussie Outback: a huge sky, a massive landscape, and a peaceful and profound emptiness-- solitude, I guess. Very hard to describe! (Has anyone else felt this sort of thing? Help!)

It cleared up just as we hit Lake Tekapo, a beautiful blue glacial lake. We kept on until we hit Mount Cook Village in the evening, a contrived little ski chalet-feeling settlement  built in a flat valley beneath towering mountains with a posh hotel, 2 hostels, and a couple of houses for the Department of Conservation - Mt Cook is NZ's highest mountain at 3700m or so, though not that tall by Canadian or European standards- but still pretty amazing. We stayed and ate in this lovely "Backpacker Lodge" with a pub decorated with deer head hunting trophies and great beer called Tui on tap -- unfortunately the "grocery stores" were basically a few items of junk food and instant noodles behind the hostel reception desk. Ugh. So much for saving money by cooking! Every room had a view of the mountains that was almost too perfect-- it felt constantly like we were looking at a painting, not a real scene!

This morning we set off for a hike to Mt Cook lookout, a really cool trail running along the valley floor through grass and lots of spiky plants. We got close to the mountains and another turquoise lake at the lookout and heard a BOOM and a rumbling sounding something like a big truck going over a bridge on a highway... this happened a few more times, minutes apart, before we saw what it was: avalanches high up in the snowy mountains! Just crazy. We hiked another trail later on to Tasman Lake, in the same area, and this time found a huge blue lake with giant ice chunks floating in it-- that didn't look that big until we saw a teeny little yellow tour boat cruising between the icebergs.... and we realized how warped our sense of perspective is.

After our mountain hikes we headed back to the coast in our car, passing rolling hills, perfectly still lakes, and many, many sheep (with which we play our very favourite country-driving game... honking at sheep and making them hop and run this way ad that.... a forgotten pleasure from our drives around Tasmania, but somehow a game Stephane and Jenny also know! Maybe it's universal?) We made it to the coastal town of Oamaru about two hours before dusk, and checked out the Blue Penguin Centre to find out about seeing the little blue penguins the town, and this part of the coast, is known for. Turns out they've turned the place into sort of a Phillip Island (Australia) style circus-- $25 to sit in the grandstand and watch the penguins swim into shore from the ocean. 147 penguins counted last night, they kept telling us! We sort of wondered if we could just spot some on our own, and then one of the ladies at the centre let it slip in hushed tones that: "If you drive to this spot on the map right now, it'll take you only about 5 minutes to get there, and if you look hard and peer into the bushes alongside this beach, you might see a yellow-eyed penguin, as they come in from the ocean around this time to their nests in the bushes, where they live and hide along this inlet". Why not? We thought.... we could always come back to the penguin circus later.

We get to the viewing area and it seemed the word was out -- there were 5 or so other cars parked there, and it actually wasn't long at all before we saw funny little shapes in the bushes on the steep incline from the beach. Penguins! More emerged from the grasses and we were totally photo happy... and even video happy, as we watched them build nests, shake their cute flipper arms, and make the weirdest bird noises ever (we'll edit the clips together and post them on the blog in the future). It was insane! They totally stole the spotlight from the adorable little seal flopping around on the beach far below, but ah well, these were really cute penguins! 

Finally the sun set and we were so full of penguin-spotting joy that we just headed to a hostel and a grocery store.... and then what do we learn from the lovely hostel manager? Well, if we just walk to the town pier, there should be plenty of the little blue penguins nesting along the rocks at night. Sure enough.... well, none of us have ever seen so many penguins in one day, but there is something about spotting rare (?) wildlife in their natural habitats that just gives you this amazing feeling of satisfaction. Euphoria, really! And so far New Zealand has been a continuous shot of pure euphoria. We can't wait to find out what comes next!