Rewind to earlier, and the day actually started pretty well. I went back to Queens Park to do a pre breakfast run, and pretty much literally ran into a gang of ducklings....
Cute!
Things took a bit of a downer when I fell down a drain and hit my head on a gutter while I was trying to look through the window of the Tuatara house. But searching for dinosaurs has never been easy.
We left Invercargill, which until that point had been the windiest place I had ever experienced, and headed South. Very south, to the Southern most point of mainland New Zealand. Which is called Slope Point, and quickly asserted itself as the new windiest place I have been.
It was hard even to stand up! From here we headed to Curio Bay, where we stayed in an old fashioned gypsy caravan for the night.
The wind continued, and seemed to be getting even worse, if that was even possible. Concerned that the caravan might take off, we headed for the beach (which, off course, was a great idea in high winds). Curio Bay is a striking bay, especially in dramatic weather!
The area is known to have some Yellow Eyed Penguins, but they are really rare and you're lucky to see them. Also, they get stressed very easily by humans so you can't get too close. They go out to sea in the day to fish, and then return to their burrows on the shore in the late afternoon/evening. It was about 5pm when we were on the beach, and we were going to head back to the caravan (if it was still there) but I really wanted to see if there were any penguins around, so I annoyingly insisted we walk right to the other end of the beach. I stopped to watch some other sea birds, pondering our poor luck at not finding a penguin, when suddenly a penguin glided right out of the water on his belly, and started waddling up the beach, stopping every so often to preen his feathers! I wasn't sure what to do, as he was right next to me, but i knew we weren't meant to be that close to each other in case he got frightened. And I was shocked, so who knows what he'd have thought. So we sat quietly on a rock, and watched him walk up the beach to the cliff, where his burrow must have been. What a moment! I felt very privileged to have been in just the right place at the right time, and seen nature just going about its business. Penguins do have a really tough life, but this little dude had made it back from another day, and was walking up the beach, just like he'd finished a day in the office and was headed back home, taking it in his stride. Remarkable creatures.
Day 39: Curio Bay - Dunedin
Somehow, the gypsy caravan was still in the right place in the morning, although all through the night I could hear the wind howling around and shaking it to its wheels. It was pretty cozy though, with a log fire and wrapped up under blankets listening to the storm.
Early next morning we did a quick run to the Petrified Forest...
Which is an ancient fossilized forest (can't see too well here as is better seen at low tide). I was petrified of the waves. Is it always this windy here?!
After the run, we headed up the coast, where finally the wind dropped. I was excited as we were off to visit my old uni friend Chantel and her family in Dunedin....and Chantel is a runner too!
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