Day 5 Lake Tekapo to Oamaru (🥴)

Aha! You have to explore New Zealand off the beaten track as well. That's how you can summarize today and leave it at that. But well: Today we drove from Lake Tekapo to Oamaru, where we stayed for one night (thankfully only one night).

On the way there, we wanted to see the famous Elephant Rocks. A certain person, I can't say who (but today Norman is writing), entered Elephant Hills into the navigation system. Well, there is a certain difference between Rocks and Hills, and when we arrived according to the navigation system, there were sheep on green hills. Nice, but somehow normal and not Rocks. How it could have been, you can see in the photo above (copied from the internet). We then continued to Oamaru and ignored the stupid rocks. When we arrived there, we were curious about the town. We had read that it used to be very prosperous, but now it has declined a bit. - Confirmed! You really don't have to be here, it's a bit shabby.

Alright, let's go to the sights. The old town with the limestone buildings - condition see above.

The famous Steampunk Headquarters. To put it simply, steampunks act as if electricity has not really been invented and everything works hydraulically and with steam engines. You can visit that here. The master unfortunately died about 10 years ago, but obviously his machinations have been rotting here ever since. "Out of Order". Uncle Willybald's former barn from Bavaria looks similar from the inside and smells the same. I urgently need some mint cream for my nose.

Then we wanted to see at least the penguin colony. Cordula was joking that there would probably only be 5 disguised chickens sitting there, but that was not the case. - No chickens to be seen - and no penguins. They only return from the sea in the evening, so overall it was, let's say, empty there. At least there were sea lions, but they are also found in Kiel.

Well, what can I say. Our accommodation has a stunning view over the bay. We are staying in the 1870 Harbour View Cottage all to ourselves. The interior is also from that year.

Oh: The weather today was much better than expected. 😏