Little Blue Penguins

We had a reasonably productive morning - a load of washing done and hung out on the line, a trip to the supermarket, mayonnaise made, eggs cooked, cooled, peeled and made into egg mayonnaise, sourdough discard prepared ready to be made into pancakes.  MrMacD attempted to install the new light outside the back door, but it had either a defective screw or the little hole the screw was meant to fit into was defective, so he took it back to Mitre10 and it was replaced without question.  Just after he returned our lovely Blip friend, Mima, and her equally lovely dog, Bean, arrived for lunch.  While MrMacD and Mima toured the garden I made the pancakes, which were then topped with the egg mayonnaise.  Delicious!  We had a lovely couple of hours with Mima and Bean and actually managed to sit outside on the deck in the sunshine for coffee and biscuits.

After Mima and Bean had left MrMacD got the replacement light installed and started on the light in the second bedroom.  Meanwhile I tidied up after lunch and did the ironing.  Just after 5pm we set off to walk to the Little Blue Penguin Colony as we had a reservation for tonight.  We duly arrived and found somewhere to sit on the “grandstand”.  At 6pm a nice young man started telling us about the penguins.  They’re tiny, only 30cm high and weigh 1kg.  They spend all day out in the ocean, travelling 25kms north of Oamaru to feed, then 25kms back home.  They are a wild colony, so come and go as they please.  At night time they form “rafts” to come into the shore, then make their way up the rocky ramp and scuttle past the seals to their little wooden houses.  Some of the penguins squeezed under the fence and past where we were sitting.  It was wonderful to see them so close, a really special experience.  We stayed for about an hour then set off for home as we were getting cold.  By the time we’d walked up a couple of hills we had warmed up.

Unfortunately taking photos or videos was forbidden, so I wasn’t able to take one for today’s blip.  I had to content myself with the penguin statue alongside the footpath (balancing the moon and a lampshade at the tip of his nose), another statue at the centre, and the outside of the centre.