Friday 19 January 24

Overnight we had received several messages from our NZ based family and friends that there was a Severe, Red Alert, Weather Warning for the West Coast.

Over 1,000 mm – yes, 1 metre! – of heavy rain was expected to fall, causing widespread flooding and potential landslides over the Alps😧

It took a nanosecond to decide to abandon Plan A and head to the East Coast instead!

Oamaru was our choice, so quickly reserved a place at a harbour side site and skedaddled at 9 am..

As we drove out of Queenstown in sunny conditions we “stumbled across” one of the world’s most iconic places where folk delight in throwing themselves off a bridge tied only by their ankles to a big elastic rope – and fabulous viewing it made too…and No, we weren’t tempted, especially at £130 per leap, to give it a shot!

As we travelled east, through many “one horse towns” and farmland, we were struck by how contradictory it seemed to have sheep and/or cattle stations on one side of the road, yet flourishing vineyards and fruit farms on the other – must say something about the Otago climate 🤔

Stopped off in a couple of these wee towns

Arriving at Oamaru we were struck by the magnificent Victorian buildings, made from local limestone.

It also has a thriving SteamPunk movement with it’s HQ here and examples all around the town..

But the star attraction is the colony of Kororā, aka The Little Blue (or Fairy) Penguins that waddle home every evening at dusk to return to their burrows 50-70 metres from the sea…at barely a foot tall they have a high cute factor😉🐧so we were keen to try to get a glimpse of this nightly ritual…