Oamaru

Up about 8:45, showered, breakfast and checked out, and headed for Oamaru. I read in Lonely Planet that the road south of Christchuch is boring, so decided to head inland and take the "Scenic Highway", SH72, which meets up with SH1 near Temuka. Got to SH72, headed south, turned off at Mt. Hutt ski area to check it out, but you need chains to get up to the mountain. They had chain hire at the base, but I wasn't about to hire chains just to drive up to see it then turn back around again.

So, I continued south, turned off further down to Peel Forest and checked out "Big Tree"; a big tree, 1000 years old and more than 8m in circumference.

Stopped a couple of other places to take snapshots. The scenic drive isn't particularly scenic.

Got to Oamaru about 4:00, checked into Empire Hotel Backpackers (thumbs up from Let's Go). Oamaru is cool, the whole old downtown is all done in white Limestone, all the old buildings look wonderously amazing!!! It's very impressive! Beautiful. The hostel is right downtown, in an old restored hotel. It's still being worked on.

Drove out to where the rare yellow-eyed penguin comes ashore. The come ashore about two hours before dusk. They are shy, and won't come ashore if there are people around, so viewing them is restricted from high above the cliff above the beach. I was able to get some good video, though, not much for still pictures (too far away). There's not a lot of them, only saw about 5 or 6 some ashore. They are quite large, these penguins are about 70cm tall.

Headed back to Woolworth and bought some groceries, back to the hostel and made supper (beef sausages), then about 6:15, headed to the Blue Penguin Colony. These penguins come ashore the hour following dusk. These penguins are small (the smallest of all penguin species) only about 25cm tall. It's $10 to see them come ashore and go to their homes. Interesting, but not worth $10. And you can't take any pictures either. You are quite close to them, they don't mind human's around at all. The viewing platform is, perhaps less than ten feet from part of the area where they den. While I was there, more than 60 came ashore. Back to the hostel about 7:15, decided what to do tomorrow, and used internet and watched TV.