We enjoyed a delicious breakfast prepared by James and then made good use of the free wireless internet for a couple of hours before getting on our way.

We drove back down to the harbour where we had seen the blue penguins and then had a look round the Victorian area of Oamoru and saw many historic limestone buildings and lots of British flags which was quite a surprise. We parked up to have a better look at the Steam Punk train near the old harbour railway station. It is an amazing piece of modern art and we had seen many Steam Punk sculptures around Oamaru. As we understand it from our hosts, they are intended to represent modern art as it would have been if created by the Victorians with the materials they had to hand at the time. Amazing stuff and well worth a look.

Unfortunately for us we discovered that we had picked up a puncture, in fact our left front tyre was completely flat! We got ourselves a coffee in the Star and Garter while waiting for roadside assistance to arrive. They must serve amazingly good stuff because the place was packed and the minimum age of the customers (other than us youngsters of course) appeared to be approximately 103!

On our way south again towards Dunedin and our next stop was to see the Moeraki Boulders. Again well worth a look, it seems that a few giants have been playing marbles on the beach, gone off to lunch and just left them lying there! The wonders of nature, as always. Taking a detour into Moeraki itself, a sleepy little fishing village where we stopped off at Fleur's and enjoyed roasted pumpkin soup for lunch. Great taste and huge bowls, must have been made with those giants in mind!

On our way again and arrived back at the Dunedin city around 4pm. Time was tight and we needed to do a really quick turnaround. Of course what followed was a complete comedy act too painful to describe, but between us we managed to check in, get all the luggage inside and up to the room and out again within 10 minutes. Quite an achievement!

We were soon on our way up the Otago peninsula, as before taking the beautiful road along by the shore, and reached Penguin Place for our 4.45 pm check-in with minutes to spare. Yesterday it was little blue penguins but today we were all set to see the rare yellow-eyed penguins of which only around 4,000 remain in the world and, we understand, all in New Zealand. Our guide, Tim, gave us a bit of background information before we boarded the bus for a hair raising 5 minute ride. We then descended quite steeply towards the beach and he was soon pointing out some penguins who were already coming ashore. For the next hour we were able to observe a number of penguins from quite close quarters, both singly and in pairs. We did see one pair practising to increase the numbers of the species, but not in front of the children please! These wonderful people have constructed an amazing array of tunnels and hides from which you can observe without disturbing the penguins. It is a great achievement and gives a wonderful experience for anyone who would like to watch the yellow-eyed penguins close up.

What goes down must come up and at the end of our tour we had to climb an excruciatingly large number of steps to get back up to the bus. Lucky that we are so fit!!