We decided to stay another night at Waitaki Waters Holiday Park as it was a nice site and so we could get the money to buy the England tickets from the couple, who were also staying another night. We went to the office to pay for tonight and the owner gave us some very useful information about Oamaru, where we were heading for the day. He showed us where we could park for free, and told us not to pay the $25 each to see the penguins, just hand around in the carpark!

We drove the 20 mins into Oamaru and parked up, then used the free internet in the library for a while. We visited the I-Site to pick up some information and find out the viewing times for the penguins, then walked along the main street to look at the old Victorian buildings. Dave also had his picture taken underneath the 'Tees St' sign!

For lunch, we visited the Whitestone Cheese Factory. As we walked in we were given samples of the 3 'cheeses of the week', then we ordered a platter to share. We got 6 different cheeses, bread, crackers, fruit and quince paste (which tasted like honey). It was very good value and we thoroughly enjoyed it....could have done with some wine though!

As the penguins weren't until 6:30pm, we headed back to the site and had a walk down to the very pebbly beach. It's the first pebble beach we've been to, and we spent about half an hour sat at the top of a big mound throwing pebbles into the water - good fun!

Back at the site, we watched TV for a while before eating tea then driving to see the penguins. After driving between the centre carpark and another viewing area for a while, we parked up and hung around outside the centre, trying to listen to the guide talking on the loudspeaker (to the people who had paid to get in!). We were stood near a bus and suddenly heard rustling....we looked down and 2 little penguins waddled out, saw us, and waddled back into the bushes - real penguins!! We'd obviously scared them off as they didn't reappear, but we did see another one in the car park as we were leaving!

We then headed to a pub near our campsite that the other couple had told us about, to watch the All Blacks v Japan. It was a good match to watch as the All Blacks thrashed Japan by over 70 points! Cheese, penguins and rugby - what a good day!