Hal, Jone, Andy & Mary’s excellent adventure: In Search of the Penguins

Here is a picture of Jone cheating since we are still in search of the penguins. More pics and blog to come.............check back!!!

Here is a picture of the Chilly full of lunch that Sharon packed and sent with us!! Sharon and Richy were amazing hosts. Thanks for the Lemon Lime bitters and the homemade banana cake.

Amazing picture of one of the streets in Te Anau

Mary's slippers were made from this sheep who was along the road to Te Anau. There

were no less than 1,000,000 sheep along the way.

The Train Station in Dunedin

Day 3 (Thursday), we got up and Alan, Olivia’s husband, and the chef of the house made us breakfast. The sun was shining and it was another beautiful day. The temp was about 50 degrees. We checked out, and headed over to the train station. We toured around a bit and then went across the street to the Cadbury factory where we watched a movie and bought candy to bring home. After that we hit the road again and headed on over to Te Anau.

The parlour at the Lisburn House

We arrived at Dunedin after dark and proceeded to look for our bed and breakfast for the night, the Lisburn House. After a few wrong turns, we pulled up at a beautiful old house that was over 150 years old. We rang the doorbell and Olivia, the owner answered the door. We brought our stuff up to our rooms and had some tea with Olivia. We think she might have had a few pots of tea right before we got there because she talked non stop. She told us what to see in Dunedin, and a little about the town and the house. We were getting hungry so went downtown to the Speight's Ale brewery for dinner. We shared some fish and chips and went home. At this point, we still hadn’t managed to stay awake past 10pm. Of course we were up at 5:30 every morning because of our internal clocks.

Andy holding one of the mussels that he didn't eat.
They had no senior citizen boulders for Mary and Jone to climb on so we settled with a picture in front of them. (where are the ladders and hand rails?)

After lunch we headed over to look for the blue penguins. We got there about 2pm and were told the penguins do not come out until about 4:30 or 5pm. Oh well, we will try to find penguins in Dunedin. After the penguin hunt was over, we headed over to the Moeraki boulders. They were very interesting. The sun was out and the surf was beautiful. When we were done with the boulders we were back on the road to Dunedin.

Andy's large bowl of Green lipped mussels. Hal helped him eat them :)

Andy, Mary, Jone and Hal

The boat that the owner takes out every morning to pick up the "catch of the day"

One of our first stops along the way was the Fleur’s Restaurant----Seafood Shanty---Excellent food!!!! Andy got an entire bowl of Green mussels. Hal had to help him finish them off.

On day 2, Wednesday, Sharon took us to a fleece outlet where Mary bought some slippers, and to a store like REI to pick up some ponchos in case of rain. We were told that a “cyclone” was coming in so we should be careful with the weather. We stopped off at a New Zealand staple called Cookie Time for some cookies for the road. We said our goodbyes to Sharon and headed on down Hwy 1 to Oamaru and Dunedin.

Hal, Sharon, Richy, Jone, Mary and Andy

After that, we met Richy’s wife Sharon for dinner at Strawberry Fare. It was a quaint restaurant with delicious food. Sharon and Richy were fun and gracious hosts. (Andy had to arm wrestle Richy for the bill after dinner was over…ha-ha).

We returned to the hotel, checked in and took showers. Then we called Richy Platt, a friend of Deb and Joe’s, our friends from home. Richy picked us up and gave us a first class tour or Christchurch. He took us up into the hillside where we could look over the bays, and countryside. Richy took us to his work at The Fire station. We even got a ride on the Fire truck.After that we stopped at a New Zealand mall where the girls shopped and the guys stopped at the pub for a pint. We had a blast. Richy was a great host and guide!!!

We landed in Auckland at about 5am and an hour and a half later we loaded a plane to Christchurch. We were feeling pretty good when we got off the plane. We picked up our rental car and found that we barely had enough room for all of our luggage. (Imagine that!! We tried really hard to pack lightly…..We know that Sara and Gareth will have a good laugh when they see our packed car. After all, they are traveling for a year with one back pack each. J We drove to our hotel , the Heritage Christchurch, and dropped off our luggage. We walked over to the botanical garden and looked at trees, plants, and flowers for a couple of hours. The Rose garden was amazing.

We left home about 2:30pm on Sunday May 2nd and headed to the airport. Our plane took off right on time at 5pm. We flew to LAX airport and checked in for our flight to New Zealand. When we checked in at the Air New Zealand counter, we were told that the plane was not full so each couple would get a row of four seats. You know what that means?? Three seats for the girls and one seat for the boys. J We boarded the plane, settled in and Mary and I fell asleep. Hal and Andy slept some as well, if you can call that sleep!!!!