December 5th 1999

Memories of New Zealand:

Well here we are sitting in a internet cafe in christchurch waiting for the clock to count down until our 7:00am departure on the 6th of Dec (tomorrow morning). New Zealand has been a beautiful country, and i'm so glad that we were able to see it, even if the sun didn't shine as much as we would have liked.

We have spent the last few days travelling up and sown the east coast. We travelled south from Christchurch to Oamaru to see two species of penguin. The Litttle Blue penguin, the smallest one in the world standing only 10 inches tall, and the Yellow eyed penguin, which is the rarest penguin in the world.  They were really a site to see, the blues come ashore around dusk and we saw about 70 of them waddle out of the water up the cliff and run off into their nest boxes. We were able to go with a guide and veiw a Yellow-eyed female on her nest with a chick and unfortunatly an infertile egg. We were able to get right up close and got some great pictures.


For our last couple days, we decided to pop on a shuttle and head to Kaikoura.  On route we saw one common swimming in the ocean beside us  as we rolled along the highway.  Later that night, as we sat on a deserted beach, we watched another one (possibly two) dancing through the water, feeding and playing.  It was a good memory of our travel here.
The other cool thing about Kaikoura was the fur seals that spent their days along the shore near some hiking trails.  Mari and I saw several as we walked along, and took some pictures from about a metre away.  Once on a walk, Mari got a bit ahead of me, and while I was walking along staring at some barnacles, I was suddenly brought back to life by a loud snort.  I was just over 2 feet from tripping over a huge bull fur seal.  He was not impressed.
"whaaaaaarrrrrr" he said
"sorry, I didn't see ya there"
"snarf"
"Look, I'm sorry" I said" I wasn't watching where I was going"
"blaaaaaaaaaaaath"
"Alright if your going to be rude about it, I will just walk around you"
"snarf"
"well fine, your pissing me off too"
"hmmmmmmmfffff"
"you know you stink"
"awrrrrrrrr"
at this point Mari was wondering if I was going to be bitten, so I walked around and continued on my way, with a very obnoxious seal snorting behind me.  This was almost as exciting as the conversation that Mari had with a prostitute.

Little Blue Penguins