We had one of the shorter drives of our trip today, just 90 minutes to Oamaru. Had another uninspiring breakfast at Fable Dunedin, finished packing up, got our car from the valet and then departed.
I got caught up in the turn-only lanes again, so looped around for one last view of the hotel before getting in the correct lane to get out of the city core.
About an hour north of Dunedin we reached Moeraki, home of the Instagram-famous Moeraki boulders. These are spherical boulders about 3’ in diameter that dot the shore. It’s a popular tourist stop off. We arrived around 11:30am, at low tide. During low tide the boulders are on the beach, more accessible and harder to get tourist-free pics. The tourists came in bunches and I did get my tourist-free pics after a few minutes though.
We then went into Moeraki Village for lunch. The classic, Fleurs Place, unfortunately closed permanently recently for non-covid reasons. Fleurs has been written up in international travel publications and even has its own Wikipedia entry. Our Airbnb hosts in Oamaru suggested we instead try The Fishwife, supposedly the best fish and chips in NZ.
We showed up at The Fishwife, but due to lack of staffing over Christmas just had crawfish on menu (no accoutrements like fries, just crawfish). So we went across the street to Moeraki Tavern, which I remembered reading was just as good as The Fishwife.
We both had fish and chips, it was excellent. I wonder how much better Fleurs or The Fishwife could have been, cause this was pretty darned good.
It was only another 30 minutes to Oamaru and our Airbnb. It’s in a historical building, a former vicarage.
We were a bit early to checkin so had emailed with the host, and dropped off the car and then explored Oamaru. One of the draws is the Steampunk HQ, a museum, but that wasn’t our thing. Instead we wandered around the neighbouring Victorian Precinct and the wharf. It was very photogenic.
Got back to the bnb and met our host, Jacqui. She was very enthusiastic, happy that we had been out touristing in her town. (On the way back we also stopped in at the local Countdown, a grocery store, to stock up pre-Christmas for Christchurch).
We relaxed for a bit and then headed back out for our Little Blue Penguin excursion! The penguins come ashore at dusk (after 9:30pm this time of year). There’s a viewing gallery set up on shore, I had bought tickets before we left Toronto. There’s also a convenient restaurant next door, where we had reservations for 7pm.
Dinner was average, but it was more about the location. Went over to the Penguin conservatory around 8:30pm. Seating is first-come-first-served, we were in the 2nd row, an excellent viewpoint.
At 9pm the Penguin folks started their little spiel on the penguins. At 9:30 the first raft of seven penguins came onshore. They were really cute, about 18” tall, waddling towards their nests for the night, passing by about 10’ in front of us.
It took another 30 minutes to see the next raft, and then they started coming in constantly. Over the course of the evening we saw about 150 penguins. It’s one of the highlights of the South Island in my opinion. You can watch a live webcam of the penguins coming ashore, just remember it's +13 UTC.
We were lucky with the weather, it was about 15C at 11pm when we left. We wore multiple layers to stay warm (it gets cold just sitting around). Our host also gave us blanket to wrap around our legs.
They don’t allow pics cause flashes scare the penguins from coming onshore. You don’t need to use a flash, but there’s always someone in the group who doesn’t realize their flash is on, so it’s easier just to have a blanket ban on pics. So unfortunately I don’t have any pics, but I did get to watch them the whole time and not get caught up in picture taking.
On the drive out we passed by a handful of penguins waddling along. We drove at 20km to make sure we didn’t hit any. (The penguin folks also asked that we check under the car before departing to make sure there weren’t any penguins underneath).
It made for a very full day, which in fact was a transit day.
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