Now at Timaru south of Christchurch. It's a cloudy day but not raining so far and we'v been travelling from in Southland down to Tuatapere near the south coast and east to Invercargill and the "Lands End" of NZ, Bluff. We took a ferry over to Stewart Island and spent a couple of days there with fine weather. We did some short walks including that around Ulva Island which is a wildlife sanctuary and we were lucky to see may rare birds including the South Island Robin and Saddleback.
After that, we went to Curio Bay and camped there amongst the flax plants and saw our first Yellow-eyed penguins coming up the beach after their day out at sea. They were nesting amongst the scrub on the shoreline and bringing back food for their youngsters. Also Alan managed to get charged by a Sea Lion which had decided to sunbathe next to the door of the camper. Undaunted we continued on up the coast to Dunedin where we needed a repair to our camper fridge, so whilst that was being done we went around the "Cadbury's World" factory. After that we visited the Royal Albatross Centre and saw loads of birds soaring around and on nests. This is the only mainland nesting site in the world as the others are on off-shore islands.
Last night, staying in Oamaru, we visited the Blue Penguin colony and saw over a hundred returning to their burrows at an old quarry site, that was between 9.30 and 10.30 pm; again they were nesting and the parents took it in turn to go fishing for the day, leaving at daylight and returning at dusk. The pics are of the Yellow-eyed penguins at Curio Bay and us at the Invercargill Gardens amongst the roses (we had a picnic lunch in the sun here!). Couldn't photograph the Blue Penguins because they are too shy and easily disturbed....oh didnt mention all the different Shags around here, lots of photos but won't bore you !!