Our first full day in Oamaru

Our little rental house is very nice and most functional. If you walk up the street to the bluff, you get a great view of Campbell’s Bay and All Day Bay. If you walk down the hill, the view is of the Pacific Ocean and Cape Wanbrow around which is Oamarui. As I mentioned, we are a hamlet south of town called Kakanui.

Campbell's Bay and the ubiquitous agapanthus flowers

view towards Oamaru

We woke Friday morning to the high pitched baas and low pitched maas (really!!) of the sheep (only five) outside our windows. We needed to get groceries, do laundry (washing machine in the house with clothesline out back), and get our bearings around town. Mark also needed to spend some time at the medical practice. Those few things took us almost all day!

view from the bedroom window

Oamaru is the largest town, population around 13,0000, in the Waitaki District, an area that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the Southern Alps. A thriving port in the mid-1800s, the downtown boasts large numbers of ornate Victorian limestone buildings which earned Oamaru the designation “The Whitestone City”. Thames Street runs straight through downtown and is comparable to Main Street, USA. You can find anything on Thames--including tourist information, of course.

Getting information about a town and surrounding area is so easy in NZ. There are tourist/visitor i sites everywhere that are manned by very friendly resourceful people--some paid, some volunteer--who give out info, printouts, pamphlets, or maps, as well as book transport, events, lodging. Whatever you want or need! Listed on the board at the Oamaru i site was a tally of the blue penguins seen the day before. We learned that the numbers would be dwindling so decided that we best use Friday evening to go see the penguins.

Oamaru is known for having colonies of blue penguins, the world’s smallest penguin breed (around 3 lbs), as well as yellow-eyed penguins, an endangered, rare breed. (Our viewings of each typified for me somewhat the vagaries of traveling and sightseeing.) Both of these kinds of penguins spend most of their day at sea but come to land to roost for the evening. Thus dusk is a good time to see them. (To add to the fun of the evening, we decided it was time for me to try driving, but more on that next time.)

After wandering around to find Bushy Beach to view the yellow-eyed penguins (who come to land early in the evening), we walked out on a trail on a high bluff in a fierce wind to join many other people most of whom had binoculars and fancy cameras and were staring down the cliff to the beach. I literally had to hang on to my glasses so that they wouldn’t vibrate in the wind. The only thing we saw was a sea lion asleep on the beach. Furtively, we looked around us and identified an official looking kind of man. Somewhat reluctantly, he looked at a little handheld clicker-counter on his jacket and announced that he had seen six penguins thus far. Hmmmmm…… At the top of the bluff was a hide filled with people but they all seemed to be talking in different languages and know what they were looking for! As we walked back towards the car, we encountered a friendly looking man who instructed me to hoist myself up on the fence and look through a break in the brush to where he pointed at the beach hundreds of feet below us. Mark peered over my shoulder, and VOILA, there was a single tiny hunched figure on the beach. A yellow-eyed penguin!! Not having a camera with a foot long lens on it, we left with no picture to share. (Note to self: buy postcard.)

On to view the Oamaru blue penguin colony--ah, colony. However, this place had a Visitor Centre and an entry fee for the Evening Viewing--$22 each (approximately $15-$16 US). This one also included a viewing stand and a narrated information program to go with the viewing (lighted as dusk darkened). We bought our tickets and found good seats in the viewing stand (out of the wind!). Alas, NO CAMERAS allowed. (Note to self: buy postcard.) We sat and waited. However, all this was forgotten once the penguins started coming to shore.

The narrator pointed out a black smudge on the water which gradually got larger and larger. Suddenly a “raft” of penguins (~20) scrambled through the waves onto the beach and rocks. From there they waddled and jumped up the rocky “ramp way” and briefly preened before scurrying further up the ramp and through the wire fencing into the nearby bushes and provided breeding boxes. Over the next hour this scene repeated itself several times until some 143 (official count) blue penguins had come to shore. A few lone penguins entertained us all by meandering over to the viewing stand and wandering around near people’s feet. We listened to the penguins “quack” and sing/talk in throaty long trills. It was kind of magical..........