Ginnysspot: Day 16 Omereau and Bryce Taylor

We awoke and decided that we would try and get somewhere a bit closer to town..So we booked out, went into town had a pretty ordinary breakfast and a wander around and came upon the very old but quite nice and very central http://www.millenniumhotels.co.nz/kingsgateoamaru/index.html It was a little dodgy but very handy.

Alans cute face as a penguin

Then we set off to the sights of this great town. The penguins were high on the list. We visited the tourist info centre (Al had a turn on a penny farthing) This town has a historic section, many buildings made of limestone..they had markets on so we visited these. It was at these, whilst I was looking at a stall that a young boy asked me "are you a local" when I said no he said "I have a penguin out the back do you want a look?" well it seemed very shifty so giving Al that nod nod wink wink he thankfully followed me and this young fellow out the back to this junk yard where the boy went over to a little box and knocked on the lid, lifted it up and there was a little fairy penguin sitting on an egg. How special. He ezplained it had made a nest behind old wood, so he and his father had made the box and lured it there with feathers..o so cute. So no he wasn't a white slave trader or anything..I did buy one of his little statues (naturally a penguin)

We then went to the penguin place and found out when to go, had lunch overlooking the water, visited a cheese factory, visited Janet Frames house (an angel at my table) then it was off to see the first lot of penguins to come ashore. They are the yellow eyed penguins. We were blessed to see one so close. About 50 metres up the cliff face and we were told she was a 16 yr old who had lost her life long mate this year and had picked up a toy boy and he was a bit wayward and didn't always come home and she was waiting for him. How funny. The man who has a site http://www.yelloweyedpenguin.com.nz/ mentioned us on his page..."stood next to the viewing platform for about an hour, she preened and gave a few calls before moving off into the bush. Excellent. I spoke to nice folk from Czech Republic, France, States, Australia (especially Mary & Allan) and the rest of the world. " wow we found that after we got home.
Then it was a race to get to the site for the blue penguins (or fairy penguins) where we saw about 90 penguins come ashore. Whta a site..and then afterwards they were everywhere waddling along the road etc. They are sweet. The next day we were off to Twizel