Our holiday - stop 6 - Oamaru

Nearly over! We stopped en-route to Oamaru to see the Moeraki boulders. These are amazing as they emerge from the cliff and end up on the beach like huge alien eggs. We spent ages looking at these things and the boys climbed all over them (and in them of course). Now that's how this alien got here!
The insides are honeycombed and the 'shells' have patterns and cracking so they really do seem like huge eggs.

At Oamaru we went to visit 2 penguin colonies. The first was the Yellow Eyed Penguin (the world's rarest) and we were lucky to see 6 down on the beach.

Then we went to see the Blue Penguins that have a colony really close to the harbour. They have nest boxes for these here and it is heavily co-ordinated with a viewing grandstand. The penguins arrive as it gets dark and climb the rocks and then cross in front of all us observers to their nests. We did get to see plenty of chicks too as they kept emerging from the burrows, calling excitedly as they heard the adults arrive. All very lovely, but the kids got terribly cold by about 10pm (and tired!!!!) so we headed back to the bach.

Next day was just a hop and a skip back to Christchurch. We've been swimming this morning and to the beach boogie boarding this afternoon. Got to squeeze it all in before school starts again on Monday!