Peninsulas and boulders

Waking up in luxury was wonderful. I had an excellent shower and then went out to the little house and found Matt and Keith watching football. After some toast and lovely jam we headed out in the car because we wanted to visit the Otago peninsula. It took longer than I expected to get there but maybe that's because we drove right to the end of it. At the end there were penguins and albatross to see but unfortunately it cost too much money for us to go into the centres and view them. Therefore, the trip to the end of the peninsula was a little pointless. Nevertheless, we cheerily headed to another part of the peninsula so that we could walk on a beach and see if we could see any seals. After walking along sand and climbing over many rocks we left disappointed. No seals were sleeping in this area. We did however find a little lamb up on some rocks, munching away at some trees. It was there alone and we were a little worried about it so we went to find a nearby farmer to let them now. The farm just by the beach seemed empty though so unfortunately we had to leave it. It probably could have climbed back up the rocks somehow and it seemed ever so happy chomping away at the greenery so we didn't feel too guilty as we drove on. 

On our drive back towards town we stopped at a viewpoint, walking half a kilometre up hill to reach it. The views were quite lovely but having just been to Milford we weren't overly impressed. We didn't stay too long and instead headed back to Fletcher Lodge, stopping at a supermarket to pick up the bottle of wine we tried to get yesterday. We'd chosen a Hunter's Sauvignon blanc because we'd visited Hunter's on our wine tour and sauvignon blanc is our favourite. We felt it had some meaning. We quickly dropped off the wine and said our farewells because they had guests and we didn't want to intrude for too long. They had been ever so kind to us and they genuinely seemed a little upset that we were leaving. Before we left, Ewa told us that we should visit the steepest street in the world on our way out of Dunedin. We thought this sounded fascinating and so drove via it. It was pretty steep but we weren't sure what made it the steepest street in the world. Does it exclude roads and does it have to have houses on it to count as a street?

On our way out of Dunedin we tried to find a view point so we could stop and eat lunch that we'd got when buying the wine. We couldn't find the viewpoint though so ended up stopping on the side of the road because we were too hungry. Probably the worst lunch spot so far but the ham and coleslaw sandwiches still tasted delicious. After food, we headed on for around an hour until we reached the Moeraki boulders. These are perfectly round stones that sit together in a cluster on a beach. We took a stroll down the beach and tried to decipher how they were formed as scientists aren't entirely sure. We had no clue. But as we were at a beach we decided to share a tub of ice cream. We had a mixed berry and a hokey pokey flavour which were rather tasty. 

Our final destination for the day was Oamaru, a small town on the coast. Our main reason for wanting to get to this town in the early evening was to go and see the Penguins that were often spotted on the nearby beaches. We got to the beach probably a little later than we were meant to and after waiting for 40 minutes we failed to see any yellow eyed penguins. We were told by somebody that had we been there half an hour earlier we would have seen a couple. We left rather disappointed. By the time we got to a hostel it was just gone 7pm and we were luckily that the lady that worked there had only just gotten in her car but not yet driven away. We felt a little guilty as she was obviously about to go home but nevertheless she happily checked us in. We had to head to the supermarket as soon as we'd checked in though as we had nothing for tea. We made a yellow Thai curry again, this time with yellow peppers, because we wanted to use up the last of our rice. It was pretty tasty but that was to be expected.