 |
| Headed to our second location - Oamaru! |
We
got to Oamaru at about 5pm on Easter Sunday and went right to our hostile,
Chill Awhile.
Right away the reception guy started telling us things we could
do that night. Most things were closed since it was Easter, but some of the
things that you didn’t have to pay for were free…like going to see penguins!!
He started showing us on a map all the different places we could see yellow
penguins and where we could see blue penguins and seals. We were there at the
perfect time for penguins, so we didn’t even move our stuff into our hostile before going
off to try and find penguins.
We
went to find yellow penguins first since they could usually be seen from about
4pm – 7pm. We drove through a little bit of the town which was really cool
because it was really old fashioned. They left some of the buildings super old
looking down this one street which was cool. Then we got to this cliff where
the yellow penguins can sometimes be spotted.
There is a shore line about half
a mile long where they usually are, and then there is a spectators viewing
stand above that looks down on it. The yellow penguins are an endangered
species, so he told us that there aren’t too many of them left. Sometimes they
are super close to where people stand and other times they are half a mile away
and you can’t see them. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of these penguins. We
probably waited for about twenty minutes before we decided to give up. It was
getting dark, so it would have been hard to see them anyways. We were a little
bummed, but we knew we still had the possibility of seeing blue penguins.
We
drove back into town but went along the coast where a bunch of docks and boats
were. There were a couple smaller piers as well, and we were told that along
the whole shore line had potential to have penguins and seals. The blue
penguins aren’t endangered, so we were told it may be easier to see them. By
the time we got to the place with the blue penguins it was dark out. They have
penguin crossing signs since the penguins cross the road each day. We weren’t
exactly sure where to stop first, but eventually we saw a bunch of people
standing around in one spot. We decided to pull over and check it out. At first
when we got out I didn’t see any penguins but people were taking pictures, so I
thought maybe there was a seal or something. Then all of a sudden a little
penguin came out from under a dock and started walking towards us. It was so
cute! It started off walking pretty slow out and then headed towards the road.
Then another penguin came out and did the same thing.
There were so many people
there trying to take pictures and see them. They wound up together at the edge
of the road and it looked like they were going to cross together. I don’t know
if it was because there were a lot of people and they were scared or if they
didn’t actually want to cross the road, but they stayed on the edge and didn’t
go anywhere.
Eventually we decided to leave because we were hungry, so I’m not
sure what ended up happening to them. I love penguins, so it was really fun
being able to see them!
We
got Thai food (a first for me) for dinner and then headed back to our hostel.
This hostel was really cool because it had different instruments you could play
and it had a room where you could paint whatever you wanted. They provided
stones, pieces of wood, frames, and acrylic paint to use.
We chose to paint
some egg-shaped rocks since it was Easter, so we got to paint Easter eggs!
Other than that, we were in a room with like 8 other people, so we didn’t
really want to be in our room too much. It’s hard living with a ton of people
in one room because you don’t want to take up space or be too noisy. Overall
though, you get used to just moving around in the dark and trying to do things
quietly. Plus they had a lounge and the painting room where we could talk.
The
next morning we woke up at like 5:30am because we wanted to watch the sunrise
at the Moeraki Boulders. These boulders are believed to have fallen from a
mountain way back when and are now just sitting there. They are pretty cool
since they are super round. It looks like they were man-made to look like that.
Since we were on the east coast, we were told the boulders would be really cool
to see at sunrise. The boulders were about an hour away and sunrise was about
7:15 so that’s why we had to wake up super early. We drove down to the path to
lead us to the boulders. You can either pay like $2 to go walk down and see
them or you can go park in a different lot for free and take like a ten minute
walk to the boulders which is what we decided to do. There was a sign that said
the boulders were 10 minutes away, so we headed down the path and came to the
water right away. We didn’t see the boulders and it was dark, but the water was
coming up really far, so we didn’t know if we were supposed to be walking
there. Turns out that it was just high tide (poor planning on our part) so we
ended up having to run across the water in between waves. It was actually a lot
of fun because we kept running up and down trying to beat the waves. Eventually
we made it to the boulders and were able to take some pictures.
It was still
pretty tricky since the tide was high, but we got some pretty good pictures!
It
ended up being cloudy, so we didn’t even see the sunrise which was a bummer. It
was still a fun experience though getting up super early and then running
through the water, so we’re glad we did it!
It
was a very brief trip to Oamaru but it was definitely a fun little place to
spend a night!
No comments:
Post a Comment