Penguins and Peaks

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Queenstown is a really cool place to stay, so whilst we were there we mainly chilled out, went for walks and enjoyed the amazing scenery of lakes and snow capped mountains. We also took a day trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound fiord, which was beautiful- plenty of waterfalls, which I got a bit carried away with taking pics. The boat got right up close and even under one of them, at this point I went inside as its a little too cold to get soaked! It was a really long day- about 13hrs so after experiencing such beauty we headed back to town. We also went up in the gondola for the views over the town as well as to let David have yet another go at the luge!
Leaving Queenstown we headed back east again and reached Dunedin. A brief visit of the town and the cathedral we found ourselves getting drawn to the coast to visit some penguins. We went on a tour in a 4WD all terrain moon-buggy thing, which was handy as the path was practically an off road obstical course! The beach there is called 'Penguin Beach' as there are penguins there of course- well usually anyway. Unfortunately none were about for us that day. But this didn't ruin our day as we got really up close to NZ fur seals due to huts being made close to the breeding ground where they can't see you. The beach is also not open to the public and the only way to get there is with the tour, who only take a buggy full of people at a go. We managed to get the tour to ourselves due to it being off peak season. The main attraction is the protected Yellow-eyed penguins, which are very shy creatures and have been known to die from stress caused by people, therefore again they have made huts where you can watch without them knowing your there. We did manage to see a blue penguin, which are much smaller and moer common and really cute. Just an hour drive north of Dunedin we stopped at a camp site and the owners told us of a place to spot Yellow eyed penguins that was less busy. So that afternoon we headed to the lighthouse and to the hut and amazingly watched for 2 hrs as 15 Yellow-eyed penguins came ashore and seemed to play, and sun bathe before sunset. This really was a cool experience they are so funny to watch! We weren't too close so although we could see them easily with normal vision we also used binoculars and stuggled to get great photos but its ok I'm sure the memmory will last.
Our next stop was inland to Mount Cook, NZ's highest mountain. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side and so we didn't see such thanks to the mist. We were gonna hang about but the weather forecast was bad all week so we moved on to Lake Tekapo. Another beautiful lake we did the tousty walks and the follwing day we headed back to Christchurch. By this point we were getting fed up with the campervan, mainly due to the coldness at night (we were fully dressed with 3 covers and still cold!) and also the mice that visited us a couple of times!
So we returned to the 'Jailhouse' backpackers, which has been our base for exploring Christchurch. We leave NZ on Monday 4th where we head for Fiji, looking forward to some warmth again!, although we will miss the stunning scenery here!

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Photos

so cute!!!
NZ fur seal pup waiting for his mother's return.

Comments

[Carly]

Looks amazing as ever, love the seal, so cute. Works been crazy, never known it so busy! Everyones fine, miss you, love from the Chess birds.