Now we're off to buy some crackers

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

We're back out at the coast in Oamaru, where there are penguins and a cheese factory. The penguins are cute, and the cheese is REALLY REALLY good!
Oamaru is a cute town. Due to some particularly good local limestone/sandstone (?) a lot of the older buildings have survived and there is a lovely pocket of town that is stuck in Victorian times! I bought 3 books from a secondhand book store and when I left they had been wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
There are two penguin colony's. The Yellow Eyed Penguin, and the Blue Penguin. We set off to see the Yellow guys first, not because we prefer yellow, but because they hang out on the beach earlier than the Blue guys...
At about 7.30pm we squeezed ourselves into the hide, where we were hiding not only from penguins but also from the rain... The Yellow Eyed Penguins we're hanging out on the bluff, considering their options. They were pretty far away, and all I could make out were these little white bellies against the green and yellow of the cliffs!
At 8.30pm we made our way to the Blue Penguins... Much like the Fairy Penguins in Australia, these guys come ashore at dusk in gangs called rafts, then they make a run for their burrows, watched by a bunch of oooing and aaahing penguin toursits!
After the penguins we escaped the rain by climbing inside our tent.