No Penguins

Before I explain why I didn't see any penguins check out my favorite picture from the bungy:

That's the view from the cable car about five minutes before I jumped.

Ok back to the penguins. After Dunedin I got back on the bus and headed to Curio Bay. On the way to Curio Bay we stopped at a beach and walked around. We turned this corner and all of a sudden there were sea lions no less than 20ft from us just chillin on the beach. Our driver told us that there was no worries as long as we didn't get between the lions and the water. Also if they started moving around or roaring at us we should really move away since they can run faster than us any day of the week. Here's one pic from that excursion (no zoom was used either, this was how close I was to them):
I was really amazed at how calm everything was. I would never had imagined that I would be able to get this close to wildlife outside of a zoo. And that's part of the beauty of New Zealand. They respect their animals and they want to protect them and they understand how to cohabitate with them without either side being caged in.

After we got back on the bus we drove for a little bit until there was a traffic jam,

hahah it was bound to happen in NZ. We had to share the road with the sheep and slowly make our way through them. It definetly put a smile on my face.

After the sheep fiasco we made it to Curio Bay. Curio Bay is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It's on the bottom of the South Island which means that it's close to Antartica. That means that despite the fact that Curio Bay is a beach it is freezing! Swimming in the bay were Hector's dolphins, the smallest in world. If you braved the cold water you could go in and they would swim around you. I didn't go in because I was on a mission to see the Yellow-Eyed Penguins which had a colony about a five minute walk from where we were.

The thing with nature is that it is not on a very strict time schedule. I got to Curio Bay at 5 and was told that the penguins could come ashore anytime between now and dusk, which is around 9. So I decided to just hang out at the colony and wait. The only problem was that a Southerly was coming in. A Southerly is like a Noreaster for us. There was wind, hail, and rain to be expected. So here I was standing in the mist of the rain, freezing waiting for the penguins when a rainbow appeared and I decided to take a picture of it:

When I was done taking the picture, my camera crapped out. The cold and damp conditions made it just shut off and refused to turn back on. So I sat there in the cold thinking if it was worth it to wait out here for possibly another 2 hours to see penguins that I would have no hope of capturing in a picture. The idea of a hot shower won and in I went so no penguins. I figured that I would probably see them at Milford Sound which is where I was going the next day.

Milford Sound is not actually a sound but rather a fjord. The difference is that a fjord is carved out by a glacier and that a sound is carved out by an eroding river bed. Anyway Milford Sound is located in the fjordland national park which is a huge park in which nature is untouched. Milford Sound is the most accesible fjord and the most touristy. I was staying here for two nights at the local(and only) hostel which operated on a generator that turned off every night at 11p and didn't turn back on until 6am. I was pretty much as far away from civilization as i ever have been. The first day at Milford I took a cruise around the sound. To see all of these cliffs rising out of the water and tower over you and to see all of the waterfalls is a very humbling experience. It made me feel very small in the grand scheme of things and I was in awe of how nature by itself can create such phenominal things. During the cruise some bottlenose dolphins swam around the boat and were doing jumps and flips. I also saw more seals, but the penguins were no where to be seen. it was still a great cruise. Here are some of the pics.

The next day I went back onto the Milford Sound but from a different angle. I tried kayaking for the first time. The weather was just as beautiful as the day before and the whole experience was really relaxing. We kayaked for about two hours and then went ashore in the sound and had lunch. The wind was picking up so our guide had us hold our kayaks next to each other and we put up a sail and sailed our back to where we started. Then we just kayaked around some more and enjoyed the beautiful day. Milford Sound gets about 8 meters of rain a year so the fact that I had two beautiful days in a row is pretty lucky. Also the more rain it gets the more waterfalls sprout out so next time I am in NZ I will def come back and hope that it's raining so I can see more waterfalls.

Retelling this to everyone I realize that I have done a lot in a week. I guess that's why I feel so tired. This is the kind of pace I am going to have for the rest of this trip. I am back in Queenstown right now for a day and then I am heading to Christchurch. I think I am going to stop there for four days. There is a really good rugby game that is being played on March 4th. I want to go to it so I am going to try and get a ticket.

I hope everyone had a good week and enjoys the pics!