Hello and Happy New Year to you all! Hope you've all had a fabulous Christmas and we wish you a New Year full of fun and happiness! And despite the fact that we still have several adventures ahead of us, we can't wait to catch up with family & friends back home later in the year!

Christmas in Oamaru

Our Fairy Godmother Joy gave us a truly memorable Kiwi Christmas, and despite the fact that we spent the festive season away from family and friends we had a Christmas where we found love and kindness in an Intercity bus cafe from a stranger who became a friend and we will always remember our Kiwi Christmas with a warm glow. She is a very special lady and we are so grateful to her for this wonderful time.

It was also a Christmas vastly different from the one we would have had if we'd stayed with our WWOOF hosts! But, with the exception of our WWOOF hosts (and they lived 20 minutes out of Oamaru anyway) we found Oamaru to be a lovely little town, full of friendly people, and if circumstances had been different I'd have been quite happy to stay there for a while. It has a strong Anglo-Scottish feel to it and many of the roads in town are named after UK rivers - coincidently, Joy lived on Colne Street, the river we were born near to and grew up alongside! It has a heritage area, one of the few remaining in NZ (rumour has it that at the time when the older areas of NZ were being knocked down and rebuilt, the council here was full of Scots who didn't want to fork out for new buildings - I'm saying nothing!) Plus, it has the added bonus of two penguin colonies, and it was the place that Su and I saw penguins for the first time just before Christmas.

On a beautiful summer's evening we drove to Bushy Beach Reserve where a colony of Yellow-Eyed Penguins live, the world's rarest penguin, to watch them as they came ashore to feed their chicks (though sadly the babies were well-hidden). But we were in awe, they are absolutely gorgeous little creatures and were mesmerising to watch as they swam gracefully to shore, then trundled up the beach like little old men, though still surprisingly quickly, stopping for a little scratch or preen along the way. We were lucky and saw quite a few, including a latecomer who ran up the beach as if he were late for his tea and about to get a mouthful from the missus! And if the Yellow-Eyed were mesmerising to watch, then the Little Blue Penguins were simply magical! They are known as Fairy Penguins, for good reason as they are one of the smallest penguins in the world and they are equally wary of people. They generally come to shore much later (hence no pics - sorry, I didn't bring a tripod!) and they popped up one-by-one, running back if they saw people, warily making their way up the ramp before forming a little gang and dashing across the road to feed their chicks, whom we could hear calling from their burrows, hungry for dinner. They have to be the most amazing, cutest little birds ever!

As for our Christmas, well once we'd found our 'home' we could finally get excited and enjoy the build-up to the day. Joy managed to dig out a tree and some lovely wooden decorations that haven't been up for some years, and we spent an afternoon merrily decorating, while singing along (badly!) to Christmas tunes, including one about Grandma being run over by a reindeer! She bought us a 'lolly cake' mix, a traditional no-cook receipt used here a lot - a delicious little treat, and Su took up her much-loved position as 'Christmas chef', baking a mango fruit cake and some rather perfect meringues, lovely and chewy in the centre.

Christmas Day was a lovely chilled affair. Su and I made some phone calls to friends, such a treat, and started preparing lunch while Joy was at church, then we were joined by Joy's daughter, Kathryn, dropped off by her partner Pat who stayed long enough to help us devour some rather fabulous mince pies from the German Bakery in town. And then it was time for our Christmas Day lunch. We decided on a mix of British & Kiwi traditions so we enjoyed a Nigella special, lovingly prepared by Su, a chicken and sausage roast with Oamaru new potatoes. And then we ate mini pavlovas - Su's perfect meringues with cream and fresh berries from Joy's garden - never before have I picked raspberries in December! It was a delicious feast.

After lunch we sat around the tree, exchanging pressies and opening some goodies from home (thank you Mum & Dad!) before Su & I nipped off to Kakanui Beach for a traditional Christmas Day stroll. Now, I have to say that while the lead up to Christmas was gloriously hot, perfect summer weather, when we woke on Christmas Day we thought we'd been transported home as it was cold, grey and rainy - Joy even lit a fire in the evening. But it did stop raining for our Christmas walk, and we enjoyed the fresh air before returning for nibbles, Whale Rider and a chat with Mum and Dad. It was a very merry Christmas indeed!

On Boxing Day we spent the afternoon at Kathryn & Pat's, with their beautiful dog Sally, a Hungarian Vizla with 1/8 Lab in her - she is gorgeous and has such a lovely temperament. Kathryn is an astrologist and she did a chart for both of us of where the planets were at the exact time we were born. And in both cases she was so accurate it was spooky. I've always been fascinated with astrology, if done properly, and this just fuels my interest. Plus, Kathryn also read our tarot cards and again picked up aspects of our personalities that were so accurate and that she couldn't have known - amazing. She also took us to see the Penguin Club, a tiny place in Oamaru that has a huge amount of atmosphere and attracts many bands of different genres who love playing there. Sadly there were no gigs over the festive season, but it was lovely to have a nose around inside and we were given a badge as a souvenir. Thank you Kathryn!

Our week with Joy was rounded off with a return to proper summer weather and a trip to the Vanished World Centre in Duntroon, a place which looks at the fascinating geology of the area, with bones of sea creatures, extinct for millions of years, all found nearby, and where we were given a brachiopod that was 24-25 million years old! After a look around the Centre, we followed the Fossil Trail and had a look at some of the sites, including the Earthquakes site where huge limestone blocks have been dropped over the area and fossilised whale bones lie in the limestone, and the Elephant Rocks, huge limestone blocks that have been shaped by the wind and rain into elephant-like shapes (though Joy also found a polar bear!)We had a lovely day driving around, before returning home to help Joy with some gardening (to pay for our keep!) Then we had to try and figure out what to do next! It was obvious that we wouldn't find paid work until after the New Year, and for this we will move to Central Otago, but although Joy kindly offered us a bed for another week, we wanted to see Dunedin, the Otago Peninsula and the Catlins before starting work, as these are prime spots for wildlife and we probably won't get chance to come back this way. We did look at WWOOFs, but couldn't find any and decided to go for it anyway, book into cheap backpackers and live on a very tight budget and enjoy the amazing wildlife. So we booked 4 nights in Dunedin from my birthday and 3 nights in the Catlins.

And it is from Dunedin that I now write. I have had a wonderful birthday, and we've enjoyed lots of never-seen-before wildlife, including Hector's Dolphins, Royal Albatross and Hooker's Sealions, but for now I've run out of time and money (oh, how we miss the laptop!) so I'll sign off for now and come back to fill you in on our time in Dunedin at a later date.

So thank you Joy for all your kindness and for making our Christmas here so, so special. And once again I wish everybody reading a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Lots of love, Jo & Su, xxx