Onwards and upwards to Christchurch, and after a short enough drive we reach Oamaru. I wasnt expecting much from this place, and it almost didnt dissappoint!! On the way there, and about 40km outside of town coming from Dunedin are the Moetaki Boulders. Now these I had heard about, and hence why we stopped. I havent looked them up, and I think I had read somewhere that nobody knows how they were formed, but they are the freakiest looking things I have ever seen made out of rock. They are almost perfectly spherical, at least at a distance. There used to be hundreds of them, but a lot of them were stolen, and some of them are broken (or I should say cracked). They look for all the world like giant stone eggs (spherical eggs). The way they crack looks quite egg like too. They range in size from a large football to a very very very large football... half my size (you can see in the photos if I put them up). All around them on the beach is a weird red seaweed which adds to the egg effect too, its like little dinasaurs broke out of them and ran off down the beach or out to sea. Anyway, they are well worth a look to anyone passing by

When we reached Oamaru, we took a walk into town..... wow, what a ghost town!!! I have never seen somewhere as empty.... tumble weed would have overpopulated the place but that wasnt even there. It is a decent enough sized place too. After some wandering around we made our way down to the Victorian side of town, with some lovely buildings and docklands that have been refurbished into modern galleries and things. Very something or other!!!! We also managed to find out when the local colonies did their thing (penguins of course). We booked some tickets for the blue penguin show that night, and headed off to check out where the yellow eyed penguins (much smaller colony) would arrive (they are free). At about half six they start coming in from sea and walk across the beach, we waited an hour and saw one, from about 200 metres above the beach. He looked like a little man waddling across the beach, very cute apparently!! The real deal was at 9 that evening, so we wrapped up well and off we went. They have a grand stand set up beside the enclosure they have built for the penguins. The blue penguin is the worlds smallest, and no doubt therefore the cutest....! After about a half an hour, and a bit of an introduction from the team on hand we saw the first raft of them coming in. They were a good bit out to sea and it wasnt a big raft. A raft by the way is what the experts call the groups they travel in. They dont swim alone. The first raft had maybe 20 penguins in it and they walked up the ramp and across into their homes to feed the babies. We stayed until about 11 or so and around about 200 penguins came in. Once they were all in they played around in the enclosure and we could go up close to them and have a look. Very small, about a shoe length, and they lean forward when they walk.... hilarious to some people when they fall over!!!!Well that was it, oh apart from the bunnies. There are some bunnies which get into the enclosure and they play with each other. I stood for about 20 minutes watching two bunnies fight each other while two penguins chased them around..... now that was funny (except regina was waiting for me outside....woops!!!)

The next day we got up to head to Christchurch, not sure what to expect after the earthquakes, but we hit the road all the same.... the end of our kiwi adventure was starting to sink in, kind of a good way... but also we would miss the place I think