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Published: November 18th 2008
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Oamaru
November 16, 2008
A day that started out rotten ended up just fine. So here’s what happened. We woke up at beautiful Lake Tekapo to howling winds and gray skies, the sort of day you’d normally stay inside and read a book. But we got up anyway, had our coffee, etc. We were packed up, in our seatbelts, and Joe couldn’t turn the key in the ignition. It wasn’t the engine or the battery, the darn key just doesn’t turn. This had happened a couple of times before, but after a few goes at it, it would turn. In less than 10 minutes we had three guys in the camp tearing into the dashboard trying to take the ignition cylinder out. No luck with that and after an hour of trying to turn the key it finally started. All of the men agreed that the key and ignition were just old and nothing was catching the way it should. We drove a couple of hours to the town of Oamaru because we thought it could be fixed there tomorrow (wouldn’t you know it was a Sunday) and called the Jucy office. They said that in 4 hours
and guy from Christchurch would be there with a different van for us.
By the time we got to Oamaru the weather was lovely. We had not planned on spending any time here, but now we had no choice but to spend the night. Turned out that we had one of the best days of the trip in this town of about 12,000. It is very pretty, the buildings in the historical center of the town are built from white sandstone. It’s all very grand looking for a town so small. And today we were lucky to enjoy the annual “Victorian Fete.” We stepped back into time with musicians, jugglers, craftspeople, vendors, etc. It was fun to see people dressed up in clothing of the Victorian era and the center’s tavern was particularly lively. We were smiling all afternoon.
The guy with the new van showed up and we moved all our stuff to the different van and of course the old van started up just fine for him. But, we were glad to be rid of that problem.
It just so happens that Oamaru also has a viewing trail along the ocean where we watched yellow-eyed
penguins come in to their nests. We spent about an hour there. We couldn’t get very close, but could still enjoy seeing about 11 come home to their babies.
After a delicious brie cheese, smoked chicken and cranberry pizza (not kidding) in a fun pub it was time to go watch little blue penguins in a different area get back to their babies. This time we saw over 120 climb up the rocks. What a sight! Then as we were leaving the parking area we saw at least 10 more blue penguins that somehow had wandered in the wrong direction and were trying to cross the road. We helped several other tourists guard the road so they could get across. We learned that blue penguins are the same species as the “little” or fairy penguins we saw in Australia. They just have a different name here. The penguin viewing in both places was free, which isn't the norm.
The caravan park in Oamaru is nice, but a little close to the train tracks. Hopefully, the one I just heard will be the last one tonight. After all, it’s midnight.
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Lois
non-member comment
Westport
Are you going to be staying in Wesport as you go north? We stayed there two nights. It rained huge downpours, then sunshine, about twenty times. Chilly when it rained, Hot when the sun came out. This would happen about every half hour. The locals told us that was pretty typical. Is't it great when the "best laid plans go astray" and it turns out better than you had planned. I LOVE that!!!! Your pictures and comments surely do bring back some great memories of our travels there. We really enjoyed New Zealand. It is so much smaller you can actually see nearly the whole country!! Lois