Steepest street, boulders, stonegrill, penguins

Today was a long but fun day.  Left Te Anau to go to Dunedin.  It is the second largest city in the South Island and fifth largest in all of New Zealand in population.  It is famous for it’s railway station built in 1906, the Cadbury chocolate factory, Otago University, and the world’s steepest Baldwin Street.  I walked all the way up the street in the hot sun and was gasping for air half way through.  It’s cool to see how the homes were built on the street, kinda reminds me of San Francisco.  Though SF has Lombard Street, which I think is the world’s crookedest street, but I digress.

Had a toilet break at Moeraki Boulders then walked down the path to the beach to check out those big boulders on the shallow end of the beach.   Pretty cool looking boulders.

Next stop is Oamaru.  Dinner was special because it’s at a stonegrill restaurant.  I had steak cooking on a hot piece of stone and the sound of sizzling and smell made my mouth water.  After dinner, we went to the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony to see them swim back home.  Blue penguins are the smallest species of penguins.  They don’t really walk upright like the other species; they have a bit of a hunch, which means they are the closest to their relatives, the birds.  Sat on the benches and waited for an hour until dusk.  They swim out to the ocean at around 4AM and swim back when it gets dark.  Since it’s summer time here in NZ, it doesn’t get dark until as late as 10PM.   Finally the first wave of penguins made their way back and it’s funny to see them walk one by one in a single file line, climbing up the rocks and walk back to their colony.  Too bad no photos were allowed as the flash will affect their vision and scare them.

And just a little rant on the side, there are big signs of photography prohibited all over the viewing section and the staff repeatedly said no pictures allowed, and yet there are still people snapping away which really annoys the hell out of me.  This dude sitting next to me knows he can’t take a picture, but yet he does it.  I wanted to stuff the camera in his face.  Finally after the second time the staff yelled at him and he behaved for the rest of the viewing session.