Kiyomi and Ren's Excellent Adventures: We saw penguins... finally...

December 6 - On the road again this morning for about a 3 1/2 hour drive, this time with the destination of the most southern part of the island. Seems fitting as a couple weeks ago we were on the most northerly part of the island. Curio Bay isn't exactly the most southerly point, but it's close enough to the actual one that I say it counts. It would seem that we are indeed going to practically circumnavigate South Island at least.

We stopped in Invercargill for lunch. This is the second largest city on the south island and is supposed to be exceedingly proud of its Scottish heritage (I think the name is a give-awat for that). We stopped in a rather nice park in the middle of the town known as Queen's Park. With sandwiches in hand, we set ourselves down by a rather impressive play castle complete with tourrets. While we lunched, we saw school kids come marching out from a line of trees which circled the little area we were in. First, it looked like a group of grade 5s or so. Their teachers settled them under a nearby tree. Curious, we thought. And then, they just kept coming. Like a line of marching ants out from the trees, generally in descending order of age, over to the tree, until what looked like the kindergarten group brought up the rear and were marched into the castle. This is when we realized that the castle doubled as a stage and we sat there for a little while watching the kindergarten kids rehearse for their Christmas concert. Lunch and a show, not bad for a picnic.

After watching the concert for a bit, we headed for the nearby play structures where Kohji made a bee-line for a rather impressive geometrical structure with climbing holds all over it. Almost immediately, he picked up a fan. There were a group of students (perhaps in the 11 to 13 range) tearing around the place and one of them had noticed Kohji clambouring up. He immediately walked right up to Kohji and asked him if he was a free climber. Kohji declared that he used to be, and the kid was excited to find a kindered spirit. I wasn't privy to the conversation, but even from a distance, I could tell that the kid was mighty impressed with Kohji. I later learned that the kid told Kohji he was really happy to find someone who shared his passion! The kid even led Kohji to a special climbing area that he had been been bouldering on.

The penguins, however, were are ultimate stop, so we left Invercargill for a further hour or so drive to Curio Bay. The penguins are what brought us here, although our timing is a tad off. There isn't much to Curio Bay - a few buildings, most of which seem to be b&bs or other accomodations - but it is home to a small colony of Yellow-Eyed Penguins. There are the rarest penguins in the world with only 4000 worldwide and 1000 of them in mainland NZ. The penguins attract enough visitors that there is a small campground (surprisingly complete with power sites). At first, we thought we were out of luck as apparently it's nesting season and so there is less coming and going across the rocky shelve that stands between the bushes where the nests are and the open water. We headed down as soon as we arrive, and while Kohji managed to catch a glimpse of one, the rest of us did not (despite my trying to rush across about 300 meters of rocky bedrock with one kid in my arms, holding another's hand so she doesn't trip into a tidal pool, a fallen boot in one hand and a recalcitrate stuffed penguin in the other). We headed back up to the camp ground accepting that we probably would not get to see one of the little guys after all.

Just in case though, Kiyomi and I headed out after dinner to see if we could try our luck. And wouldn't you know it, after about 20 minutes, we noticed a small handful of people with pointed cameras and the general expression of contented tourists, so we headed over ourselves to see a couple of penguins perched on the edge of the bushes preening and generally hanging out. I actually looked like one of them may have been feeding the other some regurgitated left overs and I wondered whether is was a male returning with some goodies for the female.

When we got back to the van, Kohji headed down (Ren wasn't so interested in standing in the windy cold just to see a little flightless water fowl) and was treated to a little show as one of them popped out of the water not far from where he was and waddled his way to about 10 meters away from Kohji. It would seem humans are not a particular concern the this particular variety of penguin.

The rocky shelf over which the penguins clambour is actually a 170 million year old petrified stump forest. From the viewing platform up high, it looks like any sea shelf, but when you walk across it, you can clearly make out the tree stumps as well as fallen logs.

So, we retire all feeling that the drive (which was effectively an hour detour) was well worth it.

Of note: A little over two weeks into the trip and we have taken over 2000 pictures. Not sure if that's the country or a testomonial to how truely shutter happy we are.