It's October 2 here in Oamaru New Zealand.  We arrived yesterday afternoon and checked into our motel.  Bought tickets for the close up viewing of the blue penguins at the blue penguin colony here.  They are the smallest of the penguins - about 12 to 15 inches tall, and live along the Southwestern coast of New Zealand and the Southern coast of Australia. Except for the one's sitting on the un-hatched eggs, the rest spend from the early hours of the day to dusk out feeding in the Pacific waters.  We watched them come ashore and waddle up the stony ramp to their home nests, in groups of 15 or 20.  They came very close to where we were sitting, but no photography is allowed (evidently spooks them and makes them less fertile).  The staff kept count - 161 of them came ashore.  It really was a remarkable experience. 

Today we drove out to the yellow-eyed penguin siting area. We checked out the climb to the siting bind - about a half hour uphill from the beach, and since only 4 of them were seen last night we decided to forgo the experience this evening.  Oamaru has a wonderfully preserved Victorian district of ornate limestone buidings, now converted to shops and restaurants.  We spent some time there, as well as the building and grounds converted to "Steam Punk", then spend well over an hour at the Public Gardens.  We were really blown away by the extensive and interesting grounds, quite remarkable for a city with a population of only 13,000!
 I'm going to try to attach some photos from today.