Wildlife aplenty

I know this is two blogs in quick succession and there is only so much you can take but we have been out of WiFi access – where is a McDonalds when you need one? The campsite in Pounawea was lovely but they didn’t have broadband let alone WiFi. “Every other person asks about WiFi,” said the girl at reception. “I’ll have to get on to me Dad about that!”

The reason for posting this blog so soon after the other is because Pounawea turned out to be a wonderful place for seeing some amazing creatures,in the wild, in their normal habitat. We saw fur seals the other day:

Then one of the real highlights, i reckon, the rare yellow-eyed penguins walking up the beach at Nugget Point. There was a hide to go in but that was it: no other commercialisation and we saw ten of the little creatures waddle up the beach towards their nests. We’re a little way from them, up on the cliff so that we don’t scare them back into the sea, so the zoom lens is working overtime.

Before we set off for Invercargill we called in at Surat Bay and took way too many pictures of the sea lions sleeping on the beach. They took no notice of us what so ever and it was wonderful to see them in the wild. Once again we find ourselves pinching ourselves: these are sea lions on the beach, in New Zealand, and we are standing just a few metres from them.

Less of interest to me but no less extraordinary was visiting the best example (they say) of a petrified forest at Curio Bay. What I want to know is who scared it that much? In fact its tree stumps and fallen tress that have, over millions of years become like rocks, fossils. It was Jurassic in the true sense.

If you can see the lines in the water, they were trees and now, to touch them,you’d think they were rocks.

And despite all this Attenbrough stuff we still had time to get Heather’s portrait done in the Otaga Museum!