Oamaru

Kia Oamaru,

After a really exhausting day, I headed to the coast - to Oamaru, to be precise - because the weather was getting worse. The weather held up, though, so after a long nap and a few phone calls in the morning, I set off at lunchtime to look at the coastal town and, above all, the penguin colony.

The campsite was right in the Public Botanical Garden and so I walked through it into town.

A really beautiful green spot, or in autumn colorful spot, in the middle of the city. From there we went on to the Victorian district. The small town is particularly known for its large steampunk scene and I have to say that the shops, which sell all kinds of things, are really impressive and I looked from one special item to the next in many of the shops.

The entire harbor street consists of small shops that sell everything you can imagine and everything you can't imagine, from bread to a self-made bicycle-motorcycle.

From Hafenstrasse we went along the harbor to the Blue Penguin Colony. One thing that cannot be missed on a city tour is the classic sightseeing ice cream. This time we had the classic New Zealand Real Fruit ice cream. Wild berries and mango in a large waffle cone. What delicious ice cream!

I always forget, however, that penguins hunt fish in the sea during the day and only come back at dusk. This means that I was in the right place at the wrong time - that happens to me sometimes too. But instead of penguins, I saw a few sea lions who (or so I tell myself) were posing just for me.

Because I caught a cold, I went to the pharmacy and then back to the van. I had already been on the road for 5 hours and sometimes I forget how exhausting new impressions and travel are until my body tells me that I should have taken a break much earlier.

What I find really great are the randomly scattered but really good graffiti all over the cities. Sometimes a real work of art appears out of nowhere and I am as happy as a little child on a treasure hunt to have discovered one of these paintings.

The next day we were to continue south along the coastline towards Dunedin. If the weather holds, two additional stops are planned here.

Let's see if this works.
Your Britta