Penguins and Cheese

Today we traveled on highway 1 about 5ish hours from Christchurch to Dunedin with a significant stop in Oamaru.

Scott was doing extremely well driving until today (as predicted by the customs agent, the 3rd day), and we had our first (hopefully only) accident. Now don't worry! The very minor accident involved Scott hitting a curb. The hubcap is really beat up and the tire appears to have a gash in it, but we took it to a tire place and they assured us that it was perfectly fine to drive on, so on we go.

In a town called St. Andrews we felt the Pacific Ocean of the NZ coast for the first time.

We made it to Oamaru by 12noon for our special behind the scenes tour of the Oamaru Little Blue Penguin Colony, which actually turned out to be not all that special because all of the nesting boxes that we got to have a sneak peek into were all empty today. The tour lady was very nice though and it was just the three of us for the tour, so we got extra attention...OK all the attention. She also allowed our half-hour tour to stretch into an hour of Q and A. Next we were told that the actual penguin viewing that we were entitled to wasn't until 6pm, bummer. Fortunately, there was a local cheese factory, Whitestone, that had a cafe and a viewing area and another Penguin colony that we could visit to pass the time.

At the Whitestone Cafe we of course got the cheese sampling and had some really awesome cheeses, including a Windsor Blue cheese that has won all kinds of awards. We also got to go into a viewing area that looks into the factory where people were making the cheese. It was cool and the workers even hammed it up a bit for us by pretending to eat the cheese, etc.

Next we went to the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Colony. This was little more than a cliffside path with a "hide" overlooking a stretch of shoreline about 1/2 mile long. The YEP is endangered and really shy, so they try to have a lot less human contact with this species. We sat, stood, waited, and watched from about 3pm until 5:20pm and after several people had left in frustration, we were rewarded for our patience when 2 YEP's swam ashore for our viewing pleasure. Since there are only about 450 breeding pairs in this part of NZ and it is the off (molting) season for them, we were really lucky to have seen them.

Then it was back to the LBP Colony to see the 6pm viewing which had us sitting in bleachers and watching as the penguins came up a ramp from the sea and charged across an open area of gravel, and through a wire fence into the protected colony area with their nesting boxes. They are very cheeky little penguins, and were absolutely hilarious and fascinating to watch. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures. :( We left around 8pm after 46 penguins had come out of the sea to nest for the night.

We then took off for Dunedin and stopped in Moeraki for dinner. We first went to THE TAVERN, but they were no longer serving food, so we were directed to THE RESTAURANT (Fleur's Place). If you couldn't tell, Moeraki is kind of a tiny fishing village. Anyway, the restaurant turned out to be a very excellent, gourmet fish restaurant (go figure) dripping with character. I had some flat fish that starts with a T, and Scott had Grouper. Both were incredible.
It is very dark in this part of NZ at night, but we finally made it to the lights of Dunedin and our B&B, The Claremont House, around 10:30pm. We are in the yellow room. It is cool.

I will post some pictures from today tomorrow, but for now I am dead tired and off to beddy bye. Scott's already asleep. ;)