So we arrived in Dunedin, it's a very quaint little town. So once we'd booked our penguin tour we took a walk around. We ended up going to the cinema to watch Pineapple Express (funny!!). We ended up changing rooms too as we were in a 10 bed dorm and my word it stank, it was actually horrific!!! So we upgraded to a double much nicer although the room was freezing. Oh and it was about 10:30 at night we were tucked up in bed just reading magazines when someone just walked in random, made sure the door was locked after that, we only met her in the morning though, she lent me her rain coat for the tour, haha.

Our tour wasn't picking us up till 3:30 so we had some time to mooch around in the morning. You only see the Penguins at first light when they go out to sea to fish or at dusk when they return. So we got picked up from the Info centre in the Oval, it's a long drive out to the farm we kept stopping along the way she was pointing out ducks wth babies (they have a white bit under their tail which the flash to each other to warn each other of danger, oh and they share nests so they have no idea which chicks are theirs or someone elses they just all chip in.) We saw Oyster Catchers, Herons (smaller than our ones) and Paradise ducks, Shags (they stand with their wings out all the time as they have less oil so they can dive deeper but the have to sry their wings out sfter or they can't fly). We got to our first stop where we saw the Albatross, they are massive!!! fully grown their body is 1.2meters and their wing span reaches 3.3meters, there wings have 3 joints unlike most birds only having 2, the shoulder and elbow joint lock into place so they don't use any energy just gliding and they use the wrist joint to steer themselves. They spend alot of time over near Chile and Argentina in the sea they never go into land only here in New Zealand to party and get it on. We saw 2 flying completely syncronised, apparently that is foreplay!!

We headed off to see some Fur Seals!!! OMG sooooo cute!! the babies are about a year old and being weaned so they sit around crying alot, we saw one suckling though I got a pic, and we saw a male trying his luck with a female but she already had a cub with her so she was fighting him off. Then we walked over to the beach area to see the Penguin I wasn't expecting to run into a couple of Sea Lions laying on the beach, we where literally about 2-3 meters away from them, 2 were laying closer to the dunes and one just on the waters edge, we watched the one on the waters edge then it got up made a noise and moved towards us so we all backed off, then woman started talking again and it got up again so she was like move away then it started getting faster and she was ok run now, we didn't run far it wanted to play so it started on the smaller one that was laying down, then he swam out to sea. It's mating season so she said there are a little unpredictable at the moment, and the females have all gone to another beach as the boys are just to nasty to be around at this time. So we moved on to a hut, it was nice to have some shelter from the wind, and there was a penguin just chilling on the hill, tres cute, they have little nest boxes just set up around the place and in one just next to us was a blue penguin one of the smallest ones I think and it had a baby in there it kept feeding!!! we were just about to give up seeing any come in when one turned up, they usually wait and come in as a pair as it's safer that way, this was a youngter and was just playing around in the waves. We went up to another hut as they had some cameras set up on the nests so we could see babies in there, the girl we met saw an egg hatch the day before we saw the broken egg and day old baby chilling (well what you can see with Mum Penguin sitting on him). In another nest the Dad Penguin came home and they did a little dance cause they were happy to see each other then she went back to feeding babies sooooo cute!! (Yes mum it was just like Happy Feet!!). We headed back after that, it was about 10ish by the time we got back so grabbed something to eat then headed for bed.

The next morning as we didn't have a proper dinner the night before and we didn't want to carry loads of food around with us Paul had a jacket potatoe for breakfast!!! interesting I know. We got a bus down to Queenstown where we are now. We got here yesterday and spent the afternoon just walking around and trying to work out what tours we want to do. We want to do the Lord of the Rings tour, I want to go River Boarding, maybe even shear a sheep although Paul isn't up for that last one!!! We'll see.

Right well I'm updating some photo's hope you all enjoy.

Take Care Love to All.