Penguins! Mountains! Ancestors!

I left Christchurch intent on making it to Mt. Cook in time to get a hike in before dinner. Instead I went way out of my way to give a very attractive guy named Bruce a ride to Timaru. He was a conservation biologist and had been to China and had very nice blue eyes. Totally worth the extra 75km. When I finally got to Mt. Cook, it was too late and wet to start out so I crashed at the local hostel and enjoyed the roaring fireplace as it poured rain outside. In the morning things had cleared up and you could actually see the top of the mountain (the tallest in Australasia). I hiked out to the foot of the Hooker Glacier (no prostitute jokes, please) and drank some delicious glacier water. Since I had left at sunrise I didn't see anyone else until I was about half-way back, and then only about a dozen or so. That is one of the great things about travelling in the shoulder season- you may only see one or two tour buses in a day instead of a dozen, much better for that serious travel karma feeling.

After Mt. Cook I headed west, stopping in the tiny town of Twizel (unintentional aliteration!) and took a bit of a walk out on the flats, which passed as the Plains of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies; I had to geek it up at least once while I was here. On to Oamaru and a blue penguin colony (the smallest in the world). There were also yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest in the world) but from the cliffs they only looked like little black specks. There are signs all over town to watch for penguins crossing because when they come back to their nests from the sea at night, they don't really watch for passing vehicles. I love it!

Tonight I am staying in Dunedin, founded by my great great great grandfather, Capt. William Cargill who traveled to New Zealand all the way from Scotland in 1848. It is so bizarre to walk around and see all this stuff named after him- a street, monument, mountain and castle all bear his name. Tomorrow I am going to take a peak in the archives at the Settlers Museum and see if any of his daughters have the same flat face and round cheeks that I do. Today I saw the tunnel he dug (or more likely hired someone else to dig) through the sandstone cliffs so his girls could have access to a private beach. Sounds like a rather industrious fellow, maybe I better double check if we are actually related?

-A.