It was a late night last night. We drove from Christchurch to Oamaru in the morning, arriving around 2, stopping for lunch along the way. We wanted to go for fish and chips, but, as Monday was a holiday, everywhere but McDonalds and KFC were closed. Ryan actually talked me into going to KFC. It wasn’t as greasy as it is in North America, but still not as good as Chubby or Mary Browns. However, we got mashed potatoes with our gravy, which was pretty cool. All day Sunday we’d been told to take the interior highway because it was a much prettier drive. Instead, we took SH1 (the technical equivelant of Highway 1 in Canada, but more like Highway 93 in Banff National Park for road style), and if that wasn’t a pretty drive, I can’t wait to take the interior road on our way back to Christchurch. It was so beautiful. They cut the grass on the side of the highway! And they manicure the trees here into giant, 20 foot hedges. I am amazed at how packed they keep their livestock. I’m so used to the large spaces given to cattle to spread out on. Here, they get a little plot of land and they cattle/sheep are so dense!

In Oamaru we headed straight for the Blue Penguin Colony. Ryan got some pretty cool pictures of them in their nests.

From there, we headed into town to check out the Single Malt Scotch place, but because of the holiday, it was closed. We walked along the street and took in the architecture, before going to the cheese factory… which was also closed.

It was approaching 5pm, when most places would have closed (if they had bothered opening), so we headed off to the iSite (the name for Kiwi tourist centers) to get some info on places to freecamp (basically, where we are allowed to pull over onto the side of the road and not pay for camping without having someone come knocking on the door telling us we can’t stay there). We are so glad we did (more on that in a minute).

Directions in hand, we headed off to see the Yellow-Eyed Penguins come in from sea for the night. Of course, we were a bit early, so Ryan cooked us dinner while we waited. The wind was really howling, there, and tried hard to steal our hats, but we won, and Ryan got a few photos – though we were a cliff face away from them.


Our last stop for the day was back at the Blue Penguin Colony to watch them come in for the night. That was something. They are little tiny penguins, around 30 cm tall, and come ashore in waves of 20 or 30 or more. Very cool to watch, but no photos allowed. They don’t want the penguins scared. It was dark by the time we left, and we got to do a somewhat freaky drive in the dark to a campsite we hadn’t seen yet. We saw another camper that had pulled over as we headed to the spot we were told was safe, and I was so tempted to say “let’s join them”, and am so glad I didn’t! I think the photo says everything...

We’re now in Dunedin, and it’s time to start touring again. I’m out! Cheers!