Moeraki & Old-Fashioned Oamaru

After almost a week, Sontsa & I left Dunedin to make our way up the east coast. On our way to Oamaru, we stopped at a tiny little place called Moeraki that had the famous Moeraki boulders on the beach. There were at least 20 massive boulders just sitting along the shoreline, many of them almost perfectly round. Pretty random, but cool. We played around on the boulders for a bit, jumping from one to the next & capturing our ballerina-like moves with Sontsa's camera =) After all that exercise, we treated ourselves to some homemade ice cream at the gift shop. Then, it was on the road again toward Oamaru. We arrived there early afternoon & were pleasantly surprised by its quaint uniqueness. We checked into the main hostel in town & really liked it--was a shame we were only there for a night. The woman who owned the hostel was awesome & she had a fluffy little chihuahua named Daisy who was adorable. After we got checked in though, we went to do some exploring. The town had such a historical look to it--really cool. We even saw a woman dressed in old-time garb with a big feather hat!

Another thing Oamaru is known for is its resident penguins! Since we didn't know exactly where we had to go to see them, we got some penguin pointers from a nice older man at the local pub. He told us that the penguins don't actually come out until after dusk, and he showed us where to stand by the harbour to see them. Oamaru actually has two different penguin species--the little blue penguin & the yellow-eyed penguin. The yellow-eyed penguins could only be seen on the other side of this big hill that would have been a 40-minute walk though. So, we opted to just see the little blue ones. Before dusk came, we passed some time sitting on the dock by the water. Then, we saw that a few people had gathered along the fenceline in front of the harbour for what we presumed to be some potential penguin viewing. Naturally, we joined. The fence even had a sign posted on it that said, "Treat Penguins With Respect." Haha. While awaiting the penguins' arrival, Sontsa & I were looking through the pictures on her camera and quietly talking to each other when a woman who was also waiting shot us an angry glare....such behavior is apparently prohibited during penguin viewing haha. Who knew? We made a consecutive decision to change our viewing location, away from the woman.

A few minutes later, two guys came up & joined our viewing spot. We ended up chatting with them for a bit--they were John & Arash from Canada. After about 30 minutes with no penguins in sight, a chilled Arash gave up & the boys left. Luckily, we were all staying at the same hostel, so we caught up with them later. Sontsa & I weathered the cold for about 15 more minutes, and I'm so glad we did! All of a sudden, waddling on the rocks directly in front of us was this tiny little blue penguin that was probably 12" tall! Sooooo adorable! It was the only one we saw, and we couldn't get any pictures since it was so dark. But it was so cute! After our successful penguin viewing, Sontsa & I went back to the hostel to put on some extra layers of clothing for exploring the town. A German girl from our room was headed to the cinema, so we ended up walking with her to the cinema & then around the city centre a bit more. Oamaru has a really beautiful Opera House that lights up with changing colors every night after 7:00 pm, so that was pretty neat. When we got back to the hostel, we spent the rest of the evening with our new Canadian friends =) I freaking love Canadians.

Arash had some crazy huge chicken dinner cooking in the oven for he & John when we got there. Turns out he is a bit of a chef at heart; the meal had taken hours to prepare! Let me just tell you that this is not something you commonly see around hostels. The guys insisted that we eat some of the food too since they had so much, and it was soooo good! They (like responsible travelers) had a rental car & were heading to Mount Cook & Lake Tekapo the next day, as were Sontsa & I. Since we were all going the same direction, the guys offered to take us with them. We were overjoyed, to say the least! Before heading out the next day, we all walked around town for a while, got some pictures of the historical-looking buildings, and went into the unique town shops (which were also like something out of the old days). We also checked out this one art studio that was advertised as "Whiskey Art." It was pretty sweet, and it had a really awesome jewelry shop attached to it too. After our exploring, we made a quick trip to the grocery store and then we were off to Mount Cook! The next couple days were some of my best in NZ!

Cheers,
Ash