New Zealand Day 7: New Year's Eve at Lake Wanaka

We left Queenstown for the hamlet of Wanaka. We used some of our credit card bonus points to book a room at a swanky B&B. The guidebook said, "Wanaka wakes up in a big way for New Year's Eve," so we expected things to be a little crowded.

We were not disappointed! The streets were filled with teenagers - lots of lads and ladettes with bad haircuts and bottles of blue Powerade. Do I sound like an old lady? Just wait until you hear what we did to ring in 2010!

The banks of Lake Wanaka.

Our B&B was pretty nice. Nate swiped the biodegradable bottle of organic peppermint hand soap and I took a nap under the possum fur blanket on top of possum fur pillows. We figured that set probably cost at least $1,000! ooh la la!

We had an early dinner because every restaurant in town was booked up for seatings after 6:00. We took a leisurely stroll back to our B&B, put the baby down for the night, shared a tray of New Zealand cherries (DELICIOUS!) and were snoozing before it was fully dark outside. We didn't hear any midnight revelers and slept through the fireworks over the lake. Unlike most of them, our alarm clock doesn't have an off switch and she was chirping bright and early on New Year's Day.

These two pictures are the only ones I took in Wanaka. We would recommend you skip it.

New Zealand Day 3: The Catlins and Curio Bay

We bid a farewell to the fur seals and albatross and continued south towards the southernmost point of the south island.

We drove to the Catlins Conservation Park, which is an underrated region of farmland, forest and beaches. The weather was gorgeous, so we found a track to walk and got up close and personal with the New Zealand flora.

Descending into the forest.

Nate heading up for a closer look at McLean Falls.

We found a place surfer's hostel with a spare bed in Curio Bay, which was a great spot. Very remote with only a few hostels and a campsite overlooking the oceans where rare Hector's dophins splash and play.

Our room in the hostel. The place was a bit run down, but the ocean was within walking distance.

We at dinner at Blue Cod Blues, which was the only place to get food for 25 kms. Good burgers and the fish and chips were wrapped in newspaper.

"I've got the blue cod blues..."

Our hostel was just down the road from a petrified forest, which doubles as a burrowing site for a yellow-eyed penguin colony. The Maori name for the penguins in hoiho and they are featured on the NZ $5 note (Sir Edmund Hillary and Mt. Cook are featured on the other side of that note, but we'll get to them in a few days).

View of the petrified forest. Those rocks are fossilized trees from the Jurrasic - pretty awesome!

The penguins arrive back on the beach around dusk after a long day of fishing. Their arrival was a bit earlier than the blue penguins we missed up in the Otago Peninsula, so we were able to keep Roxy up long enough to see them.

I left Nate and Roxy on the beach and went to find a loo and when I came back, this is what I saw:

The little blue rock on the left is Nate and Rox. The little white rock directly to the right of them is the first returning penguin.

We gave the penguins plenty of space as they navigated their way across the rocky beach to their burrows in the shrubs. These penguins are quite clumsy, stumbling and hopping all the way back to their home.

Mr. Penguin as he cleaned up after the work day.

Hopping to bed!

They were really quite amazing little animals and it's amazing how close we were allowed to get to them. Signs all around advised onlookers to give the penguins at least two car lengths of space and almost everybody seemed to observe that rule.

"Don't mind me! Just headin' home!" These people were actually much further from the penguin than it appears in this photo.

We saw four of them before we called it a night. Later that night at the hostel, we told our fellow travelers about seeing them. I said that I was disappointed that we saw only four. The gregarious Dutch fellow laughed and said, "ONLY four? The world's rarest penguins and you're upset you saw ONLY four?" I think he was a bit bitter because they spent five days on Stewart Island and didn't see a single kiwi bird (which is the main reason people go to Stewart Island). We had a good night talking with the Dutch couple and an American couple while the baby slept soundly in the room next to us.