We've now decamped to the East Coast and are staying in Oamaru - it's lovely here, the town is pretty sleepy and laid back, great food, to be honest it's a wonder i'm not too relaxed to be bothered to write this journal.
Southern Lakes
After all the driving / hiking/ helicopter flying at the glacier we went to Wanaka to relax besides the lake. Nice place, shame I was allergic to it. After I sniffed and sneezed and moaned for a day we got back on the road down to Te Anau, another nice town on another nice lake but this time I was drugged up with anti-histamine. We went on a cruise over said lake to visit some caves full of glow-worms, they were beautiful, like looking at a really starry sky apart from all the stars wobbled a bit. Glow-worms are actually lavae which glow when they are hungy to attract insects. The more they glow, the hungrier they are. Eoin wants to see if I can get a similar device fitted so he can always assess when i'm likely to get cross about a lack of food.
Milford Sound
We took drove down to MIlford Sound (a fiord) and took a little cruise around it. The weather was a bit misty /cloudy but it was still gorgeous. We cruised right next to massive cliff faces (one was 1700m ie 1.7 km unbelievable) but we got more excited about the lone penguin we went past, bobbing up and down on the water, and the lovely fur seals lounging on the rocks. I wouldn't let Eoin have the camera this time after his 70 photo extravaganza at the last seal colony.
Queenstown
We visited Queenstown for a few days. It's known as the home of adrenaline activities (ie bungy jumping, sky diving, jet boating) but, showing our age, we were there to partake in the annual food and wine festival, set in Queenstowns gardens with live jazz. It was like a very civilised all day drinking and eating session. Our tickets were all-inclusive and we felt we couldn't let anything go to waste. The food was fabulous (see photo of Eoin knocking back an oyster) and so was the wine, all local. We ploughed through pinot noir, pinot gris, sauvignon blanc, reisling, gewurtztraminer, it would have been rude not to try them all. A few times. Towards the end of all this we were hijacked by an earnest and over-friendly kiwi couple who bored us to bits talking about climbing, hiking and the general wonderfulness of New Zealand. They were staying in our campsite too so the next day was spent recovering while trying to avoid them.
Penguins
So finally, we arrived here in Oamaru yesterday. The big attraction here are the two penguin colonies. One is the yellow-eyed (only a few of these) and the other is the blue penguins (lots of these, they're tiny too, only 30 cms high). We watched them come ashore last night and we're going to do the same tonight too.
Camping
Despite things going even more pear-shaped with the tent, we're still camping. The tent is literally limping along, it's poles now broken in 5 places and the thing is bandaged together in 3 places. We're still awaiting replacement poles from America. Hope you're all impressed by how hardy we are, though to be honest, we nearly checked into a cabin last night when the fifth pole went.
We're getting quite experienced now and know what to look for in a site...most important is that there are no big fat men in the nearby sites. These are your classic loud snorers and can keep you awake for ages, or worse, wake you up in the middle of the night.We'relooking good for tonight though, the people nearest us are very thin adn look about 18.
We've also invested in a hot water bottle, supposedly because i feel the cold so much.However, Eoin pinched it on the first night and never gave it back so I can't let him near it now.
