Omaru

We stayed here just for the night as a stop off on the way to Christchurch. Not a great deal to do here other than going to see the Penguins (which by the way i think are genius and funny). There are 2 kind here both living wild, the Yellow eyed penguins who look quite evil when close up (see pics) and the Blue penguins which are about 30cm tall and great to see. We had to see the blue ones at a local conservation (set up to help them breed as they were becoming rare) at about 9pm and had to sit quietly waiting for them to arrive. You could see lots of little heads popping about in the sea in the distance and then they arrived riding the waves, walked up the ramp, they then stopped to chat with each other for a while then walked across a little unused road before saying their goodbyes and scampering off to their little homes. I absolutely loved watching these little birds and they don't half make some noise. We could hear them from our bed which was a mile away from the sanctuary. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Blue penguins at night as the flash scares them but we have some good memories and glad we made the effort to see them.

Lee