Porpoise Bay & beyond

We moved on to Porpoise Bay in the Catlins of New Zealand. We were drawn here because it is the only natural habitat of a rare species of penguins; the yellow eyed penguin. We made it to the campsite just in time to catch a great view of the sunset from the top of a cliff. The next morning I woke up at sunrise in an attempt to see some wildlife. I saw some sea lions fishing, but no penguins. This was fine because I wanted to get up early anyway to participate in a group surfing lesson. After watching the sunrise, I had some breakfast & tried to convince Kim to go surfing. There was no success with that, but she did agree to take some pictures of me surfing. After a brief lesson on land, we headed out to catch our first wave with the instructors guidance. I managed to surf the first wave without falling which was very encouraging. I proceeded going after bigger and bigger waves which resulted in many falls, but it was loads of fun and I did manage to stay up a decent amount of times. I am happy to say that after the three-hour lesson I feel ready to go out on my own and plan to do so in Australia. Another highlight of the surf was a sea lion who enjoyed chasing after us. He seemed more playful than aggressive, but it was hard not to be a little nervous when he was chasing me and getting within 1 metre of me. One lady in our group screamed when the sea lion went after her and a few of us were holding back laughter.

Sunrise on the first morning

Getting my surf on!

The sea lion that was chasing us in the water

That afternoon we went to a fossilized forest. It took a bit to grasp but we learned that we were at a sight where a forest grew 170 million years ago, at which point there was a volcanic eruption that hardened into rock all around the trees. The sea eroded away the rock over time and now there's fossilized trees surrounded in rock. We could even see imprints of branches in the stone. Kim and I both found this really cool, especially with some trees smaller than the width of my hand and other trees wider than my entire body (I laid down on one and it was bigger than me).

One of the small fossilized trees (car key beside to give some relative size comparison)

Kim in the middle of the fossilized forest

The New Zealand Niagara Falls (seriously)

That night we were on a mission to see some penguins! The adults go out fishing all day and their children wait in the family nests on shore for most of the day. But as evening strikes the child penguins wonder down to shore to await their parents arrival home with food, which usually comes around sunset. And sure enough, that's where we found them! They put on quite the production when they came home, making a lot of noise regurgitating fish for their kids to eat. It also looked like the adult penguins were making their children show them their swimming abilities, perhaps a test to see if the kids were practicing while their parents were hard at work fishing all day.

The next morning I was up at sunrise again to see the adult penguins leave the nest in the morning. After sharing the previous night's penguin experience with 30-40 other people, I was pleased to be the only one on the beach that morning watching the young penguins walk down to the beach with their parents to see them off for another day of fishing. My camera wasn't able to capture the adults in these low light conditions, but I did capture some more shots of the children as the sun rose more and more. The adults were only slightly larger than their children.

Okay I suppose that's enough penguin pictures...but they're just so cool!

Sally is is right-most vehicle. Kim was sleeping in her when this
picture was taken, as the adult penguins left home at sunriseGood ol' Sal!

The steepest street in the world!

We visited some boulders on our way to Christchurch. They are almost perfect spheres and looked to me like meteors that crashed into the beach. The experts say otherwise...but I like my theory.

We also stopped for a tour of the estate where they first started freezing meet and shipping it to England. This was very interesting to learn about the entrepreneurial visions and huge success of a man in the 1800's that led to what is now a $6B/year industry.

That brings us to Christchurch - my departure point to Australia. We took some time to figure out some plans, update our blogs, and reminisce about how good of time we had traveling together and how surprisingly un-often we had arguments. We celebrated my b-day with brewskees at an Irish Pub, and later that night we caught a live band performance on the street including 10 bag pipers. How nice of them to play for me on my b-day! Haha. I think it might have just been an outdoor band practice, but regardless the music was very enjoyable.

The band performance

Walking through the botanical gardens in Christchurch

This ends my journey in New Zealand. Kim will be touring on with Sally and hitting up some places we weren't able to make it to, and may also look for some work. While walking through the botanical gardens in Christchurch, I found myself wondering how Kim is going to cope on her own. And then I looked over to find Kim nestled in a tree, looking completely at peace with nature, and something told me she is going to be just fine. I can't think of any place more suited for Kim to visit and I'm grateful I was able to join her for half of her New Zealand journey.