PENGUINS!!!!

If you missed the other post from yesterday check it out here!!! http://cassiecaccavo.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/sailing-through-clouds.html

Wednesday - June 12 –

After we left Te Anau we headed West towards Dunedin and got into the city around 1. We stopped in Gore – it is the Brown Trout Capital of the world – not Rainbow trout – brown J. There is a huge statue of a Brown Trout in town so we took a pic - -

We finally made it to Dunedin it is a big city with a university so there are heaps of young college people like Jeff and I around. The architecture is beautiful, very English with huge churches everywhere and a beautiful train station.

About an hour drive is the Otago Penisula where there are penguins and seals. You can only go onto the peninsula if you are on a tour and we decided not to go. We had some time to kill before our evening festivities so we went to the art museum and looked at some really interesting art!

We then decide to take a tour of a brewery – Speights!!

It’s a South Island beer and it is delicious!!! It is a very well known beer here in NZ and the tour was awesome! It’s a gravity-brewed beer. That means that the raw materials are taken to the top of the building and as they go through the brewing process it goes to the bottom of the building – pretty neat! At the end we were able to pour our own beer (as much as we want) so it was fun seeing how talented we are J .

We then headed back to the camper – we decided to free camp this evening so we stayed in a car park (paring lot) next to the beautiful train station. Not too shabby!

where we spent the night.

Thursday – June 13 –

We woke up in rainy Dunedin – so glad to be leaving a big city and heading up the East coast to Omaru!

We stopped in Moeraki, this town is known for its boulders on the beach. They are perfectly round and huge! You have to go when it is low tide to see them all. It was really fun climbing them and feeling how smooth the rocks were!

Then we made it to Omaru – PENGUIN COUNTRY!!!! I.love.penguins. We stopped by the information center and got all the times we needed to see the cute dudes!

Then we headed to Whitestone Cheese Company where they make and produce delicious cheese! We saw their factory and the cheese being made then we went to the store and had a cheese sampler plate. This cheese is sooo yummy we even got some to-go! Then we walked around the old-Victorian part of Omaru. We went into a few shops, a whiskey company and a bakery and got a loaf of sourdough bready to of course go with our cheese!

We then went to Bushy Beach to see the Yellow-Eyed penguins come back to shore for the evening! There is about a colony of 30 living there so seeing 1 or 2 is normal but we saw 4!!!!!!!! It was awesome! There was rolling green hills with sheep grazing on one side and a beach with penguins on another – crazy!!

Were at the Banks Peninsula

penguin is in the lower middle

coming out of the water!

below the two birds

hope you can see this one!

what they look like!

Then we headed to the Blue Penguin Colony to see the smallest penguins in the WORLD! They are only 1kg and are tiny! They come to shore every evening and stay at a conservation area. We watched them come crashing through the waves, make their way up the rocks, and into their homes on land. We saw 108 Blue Penguins within 1 hour!!!