15 November - Went to Oamaru today, which is a couple of hours drive north of Dunedin. Caught the Coastlines tour bus which was drived by a lovely old bloke called Bruce - but for some reason I kept calling him Brian. The weather was really bad - overcast and raining, but we took the scenic route to Oamaru. Went along the Karitane coast for a bit which was very pretty, then through a really tiny place called Warrington where there was a bit UFO in a garden! The next stop was at the Moeraki boulders. Had to go and see them even though the weather was bad, so borrowed an extra jacket from Bruce and trudged quickly down to the beach. Some of the boulders were really big - I managed to climb on some of them, dodging the tide and big waves - but some of them were too big to get on, although I gave it a good go! There were loads of boulders, some cracked which made it look like someone had superglued them together. Then drove past a hugh hen hedge in Waianakarua and also a hugh metal crayfish. Got to Oamaru about 4.30 and went to my hostel called Scampers - very small but ok. Went for a bit of a walk round the town - it had some nice old white stone buildings, aparently Oamaru is famous for them. At 6.30pm Bruce came to pick me up and I went on the Penguin tour. First stop was to Bushy Beach were there was a small yellow eyed penguin colony. Managed to get quite close to a nest which had the mother sitting on two recently hatched chicks (which meant we didn't get to see the chicks). We were lucky because the male had just come back from the sea so we got to see the pair. Walked a little further and saw a juvenille penguin just standing on the hillside. We then drove around the town for over an hour while we waited for it to get dark. Bruce gave us a tour of the town going past every church, school, building etc. Then it was nearly dark so we headed for the Oamaru Blue Penguin colony, passing a "Slow, Penguins Crossing" sign, which I thought was sweet. We had actually been driving around for too long because we had missed the first 50 penguins coming out of the water. But luckily there were plenty more. We weren't allowed to take photos, film them or use mobile phones (they actually chucked a group of lads out for filming). The little blue penguins were ace - they came out of the water is groups then waddled across a path to get to their nests. They were so sweet and they sometimes looked lost and confused trying to get back to their nests. Some of them came really close, and went I stood by the path to go to the car park a load came past me really close. They are so ace and funny to watch, I must have seen close to 100 in total. They do make a racket though calling to eachother - it must drive the locals nuts. We then left, but on the way back to the hostel it was obvious why they had the "slow, penguins crossing' signs - there were penguins walking along the road, and I even saw a few on the train tracks. Had such a good day - saw lots of sight and lots of penguins!