Land Down Under Trip: Day 11

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

This morning we woke up in our little Medieval Village and got packed up and ready to leave Christchurch.  I should ad that Mason packed up and got the boys ready while I lollygagged in bed, not wanting to wake up.  Right outside of our room there was a sword in a stone, and the boys spent some time trying to remove the sword, and were disappointed when they realized they might not be future kings. 

Breakfast was small, but included with our room so it was nice not to have to search out food before hitting the road.  The boys really enjoyed the two “knights” (armor) in the restaurant.  Woodrow also especially liked the “little handrail” going up the stairs which was actually a chairlift rail. 

Today’s journey was a drive just longer than 4 hours from Christchurch to Omaru.  I was hoping that more of our drive would be right along the coast, but we were a few kilometers inland and we didn’t see the ocean until the afternoon; however for most of our drive beautiful, snow-capped mountains were in the distance along the road, which was quite nice.  Leaving Christchurch was interesting.  I would have liked a little more time to explore this town, but it was fun to drive through.  There was an extremely damaging earthquake in February 2011 (6.3 Richter) and there was still much devastation in the center of the city.  Many of the buildings were ruined, still being scaffolded, and rebuilt.  There was also lots of street art on the sides of buildings which I though Mason’s dad and grandma would greatly appreciate. 

Today’s drive was fairly flat compared to the other days, and we passed many farms, and wineries.  I’m curious to know a little more about the wineries.  There are rows and rows and rows of small tree stubs, so I’m curious if by Spring they’ll all be grown until full trees, or if wineries only bloom every 2-3 years…anyways, I’m sure the countryside is beautiful when all the trees are fully grown.  A little over halfway through our drive we were driving through Timaru when we were rear ended in our rental car.  Thankfully no one was hurt.  Theo bumped his head and I had a little whiplash, but baby was moving normally throughout the day and we’re all fine tonight.  It was unfortunate, more damage happened to the other guys truck.  Fortunately he called his boss who worked nearby (he was a tire truck driver) and his boss was super friendly and nice to work with.  He was able to call Hertz for us since our phones were having trouble with the international call, and we should be able to settle this up with Hertz when we dropped off our car.    

After that we took a quick stop for lunch at a McDonalds around the corner to regroup and try and make a few phone calls with the car rental company and insurance.  The boys loved it.  We got back on our merry way and headed to Duntroon where we were seeking out the famous Elephant Rocks. I learned this evening that the Elephant Rocks site was where part of The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe movie was filmed (Aslan’s camp).  Pretty cool.  The destination was strange.  It was off in the country and on private farm land, but the kids absolutely loved it!  “The Elephant Rocks are massive limestone formations sitting in a sea of grass on private farmland. The rocks were once sand at the bottom of the sea that accumulated 25 million years ago. These sediments were buried and the pressure turned the sand into rock, or limestone. When the whole area of limestone lifted and surfaced, the forces of the wind and water did their part in shaping the limestone.”  (from Sandalroad.com)

We spent about an hour climbing the rocks, running around and playing hide-and-seek, and enjoying the gorgeous scenery of the green fields, huge rocks, and mountains in the distance.  It was so nice to watch the boys play and run all around.  I’m truly lucky and blessed to be there mom.  We left Elephant Rocks by 4:00 and headed into Omaru where we had tickets for an evening viewing of the Little Blue Penguin Colony.  The town center of Omaru was about 30 minutes from Duntroon and was mostly through small farm roads.  Theo noted that he was not a fan of the smell of cows. 

We were a little early for our penguin viewing, so we walked along the breakwall near the ocean.  Mason took some great photos while the boys climbed rocks and searched for buried treasure.  It’s so fun to see their little minds and imaginations at work/play.  At 5:00 we were allowed to enter the blue penguin colony.  We booked our tickets a few days ago and it was hard to tell the main difference between the regular and premiere seats, but I’m really glad that we ended up getting the premiere tickets.  We ended up getting to walk through the nesting boxes on our way to our seats and see all the penguin houses.  They are so tiny and apparently two penguins nest in each box.  The couples will nest and breed in the same box as long as they remain mates.  The blue penguins are the smallest of the 18 breeds of penguins and I have to say, quite cute.  Woodrow said they even run faster than him.  They just began the start of breeding season and the first egg was laid in the colony.  The parents sit on the egg for 36 days before it hatches.  They’ll then return to sea and at 8 weeks the babies will start to learn to swim.  Impressive. 

They have very strict no photography rules (so you never saw these photos)!  Our seats had a nice view of the oceans and there were a few seals sitting along the rocks which the children liked.  Our seats were also right next to the tiny little doors where the penguins entered the colony so it was the perfect spot for the kids.  The first “raft” (group) of penguins didn’t end up coming on land until about 6:00 and then they came in varying group sizes over the next hour and a half.  Some people left after the first 3 penguins came ashore…we literally closed the place down.  It was such a cool experience!  It’s always awesome to see animals in their natural habitat, and this colony with nesting boxes was such an interesting place.  Apparently this location has really helped protect the penguins from predators and help them grow in numbers.  It was exciting that there were around 88 penguins that came ashore since lately they’ve been posting only 10-20 coming up in the winter months, whereas sometimes 200+ will come ashore in the summertime. 

Our hotel, The Bella Vista was just up the road a bit and we were able to grab some Thai food (that was super yummy) from next door.  The kiddos had some leftover pizza and PB&J sandwiches.  They’re pretty easy to please and I’m glad we grabbed some sandwich supplies the other day.  Our room is pretty nice.  Lots of places seem to have the larger bed with two single bed set-up and it’s worked well for us.  It’s still funny how all the hotels don’t seem to have AC/heating systems, but will have small portable heaters or bedwarmers.  All the electrical outlets here also have on/off buttons, so we assume that electricity must be pretty pricey.  We also figured the petrol (gas) conversion the other day and realized it’s the equivalent of around $6/gallon, woah!