The Lovely Bones - And more Penguins than a fat man could eat!

The second full day in New Zealand and still more bad wind news...Ballooning was cancelled again! Bad Times!

Still trying to keep a brave face on things we departed Hotel So, as we headed for the Wicked Campers Head Office in Christchurch to get a hold of our new travelling companion, our Camper van, which fingers crossed will get us all the way around New Zealand and will be dropped off in Auckland in 2 weeks. As is customary in these occasions, we decided to name our van, and despite Wicked calling it 'Skulls' we decided on Bones!. Hopefully as the photo here shows, Bones is not a bad description.

Anyhow, first up was Petrol, then food and other important items, before hitting State Highway Number 1, down the East Coast through Timaru to Omaru, our stop-off for the night!

Now let me tell you something about Omaru, it is Penguin central, as the monument and the Road sign here hopefully show!

To give you a brief Biology lesson, there are two types of penguins that nest in Omaru, that is the Blue-eyed, and the Yellow-eyed penguins.

In general, the Yellow-eyed penguins are more elusive, as there are fewer numbers and they are also much more shy than their Blue-eyed cousins. The photo to the left is a yellow-eyed number, from high on a cliff.

Later on, we went to the specially made Penguin 'Runway' which was basically a specifically built 'stadium' where the little fellas came ashore in large numbers before heading up the hill to go to their nests. Sadly, no photos were allowed, as the over officious guide constantly banged on about, but it was great to see them anyway. More impressive and humorous, was the number of penguins in the car park that we had to avoid in Bones as we headed to the Campsite for the night!