The weather goes from one extreme to the other here, from pouring rain yesterday to bright clear sunny skies today. Certainly a bit chillier though, you can certainly tell we are a long way south and autumn is beginning to kick in.After the wash out yesterday for Deb's birthday we postponed it 'till today so she could have some better weather! A nice easy morning to start with, wandered in to Dunedin town center via some shops for retail therapy then into the public art gallery to see what exhibitions were on. Not surprisingly there were a different couple of artists being displayed from when we were here last year! Both of whom we enjoyed, being abstract in style. Followed with a coffee in the cafe next door then a bit more strolling round the sights.After lunch we then headed north up the coast se we could find some more wildlife, visit the Moeraki boulders and finish the day with a trip to see the Blue Penguins coming ashore at Oamaru.First stop was Shag Point where we saw large colonies of Seals and shags but no penguins this year. It was a bit early in the day to see the Yellow Eyed Penguins, ordinarily they don't come ashore until dusk.Next stop was the Moeraki boulders, almost "mystical" spherical shaped boulders formed 60 million years ago and now being slowly exposed by the action of the seas on the cliffs. These boulders can be as small as a football or as large as a mini car.Then on to see the Blue Penguins, the smallest penguins in the world standing at just 12" tall and weighing ~1KG. They are also known as fairy penguins in Australia. They come in just after dusk, which in these parts is ~8pm. A whole business has grown up around viewing these penguins coming in, with a visitor center and grandstand to view them coming up the beach and into their nesting colony. They use sodium lights which give a very yellow cast over the area, apparently they aren't bothered by this as penguins vision is tuned to see best in the green / blue range. I guess this is so they can see better in the sea and at night?We only got to see a small number of penguins, enough to make Deb's day! Of course she wanted to take one home with her!!!QUite a late night for us, past 11pm when we got back to the motel then we had to sort the bags ready for the flight up to Auckland the next day...Photo: Moeraki Boulders, Koekohe Beach near Moeraki, NZ (Joe)
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