Penguins Ahoy!

Wednesday 18 June

From our almost waterfront campsite we got to enjoy a beautiful winter sunrise over Oamaru Harbour - worth the extra money alone! I went for a wander in my Primark PJs and Uggs to capture the glorious sunrise colours and lap up the stunning views. I did wonder if there were any penguins hiding out under the upside down dinghies at the top of the little boat ramps, but resisted the urge to go peeking as we are asked to avoid disturbing them.

In the last picture above, you can just see Banjo peeping out from behind a moho at the Harbour Holiday Park, just behind the red boat on the slipway - what a spot!

A dull morning spent at my old haunt Liquid Laundromat catching up on ten days of washing while Louis struggled with Oamaru parking rules and went for a swim. Spent my waiting time between washes and drying wandering the local streets and op shopping, but with no great finds this time.

Decided it would be rude to ignore Banjo’s proximity to The Galley so popped in to repeat our lunch order from April! I think we may even have sat in the same place along the picture window overlooking the harbour...

After a wee siesta I set out to explore more of Victorian Oamaru - a mix of window shopping and admiring the beautiful colonial sandstone buildings - this is such a cool wee town! The stores held a panoply of exciting and enticing items, all of which I can easily live without, but many of which I found extremely appealing!

I loved all the Steampunk characters and details around town - the enigmatic face with a reflective golden crown, sewing machine tractors, weird clown faces... And the sandstone colonial buildings, corinthian columns, symmetrical stone facades all looked extra special at golden hour - wow!

We decided to go seek the penguins again at sunset - took the car this time so we had a warm haven to retreat to. We sat & watched the darkening harbour waters, strolled along the shoreline, chatted with fellow disheartened penguin seekers and were heading back to the car when I heard a strange noise from a shed and the verge across the road! Following my ears I found several wee penguins hiding out in a shed full of old bales & sacks of wool etc - wow! It was pretty dark so my pics are 3-sec timer shots and you can spot one penguin clearly and another nearby, but there were probably half a dozen or more in there! 🖤🤍

Mission accomplished - we drove home and cooked up dinner in the freezing cold camp kitchen (and a new batch of pumpkin soup) before returning to bed and Taskmaster mayhem on TV! 📺