Oamaru, Penguin Capital of New Zealand. That's where we are today, watching the little blue penguins (the smallest of the 18 breeds) waddle their way home after swimming 25kms out to sea to fish for the day. Very cute and highly entertaining, with an unexpected drama thrown in. One of the penguins (Petey) got separated from the group as they dried themselves off and re-waterproofed their feathers, while the rest wandered back to their burrows/nests. As he went to follow, Sly the seal appeared on the rocks and poor little Petey penguin had to dash all around and hide until more of his friends came in and they could make a run for it. Highly stressful in the meantime, leaving Sarah & I in a state of fear for Petey's life. (Note the names were provided by Sarah & I in the hopes Sly could hear us and is gentle enough to not eat food with names. And to amuse ourselves while we awaited Petey's fate.)

Yes Sarah & Paul are here!!! What have we been up to this week... we continued on in Nelson, doing some walks in the gardens and parks, a hike to the centre on NZ, an art gallery and coffee with a work friend of mine who I had only ever spoken to on the phone. Monday we were off to Hanmer Springs, stopping on the way at the Hoglund art glass studio (beautiful craftismanship - look it up), Buller Gorge to go over NZ's longest swing bridge (a tad bit freaky) and walk about an old gold mining area, and then on to the thermal springs. Sulpher pools at 41 degrees C... can you say heaven?

Tuesday we were back in Chch early and visited the Antartic centre. Chch is one of the key bases for antartic work/research besides, well Antartica. Pretty cool. Ice is so thick - in spots it's 5km deep. There are no polar bears on the continent. It's governed by a mutual agreement signed by 40+ countries. They had a storm simulation room that was intended to give guests the feel of a proper storm. Mark & I waited for the blizzard to appear and were fairly unimpressed by the windchill machine that made the room temp drop to -18 degrees C. Whoopdee ding, that's a fine day in April to us! It was cool though, the room being filled with snow & ice and kept at a constant -5.

We got a chance to catch up with some of my friends before the arrival of Sarah and the infamous Paul... (Sarah is another best friend from Sside, Paul is her Brit boyfriend of over a year who no one had met, seeing as they've been in Oz since Jan). Very exciting! (For those wanting the dirt, Paul's great, very funny and quite possibly out talks Sarah. I'm not sure I've even heard Mark speak since they arrived).

Wednesday we wandered Chch, touring the botanical gardens (I never knew how uninterested in plants I was until then) marvelling at the amount of flowers that are still in bloom, despite the regular frost now, visiting the arts centre and touring the Fudge cottage (an unexpected delight!), then dosing ourselves in salt via fish and chips to recover from the massive sugar shock. A few drinks with some of my Chch friends to celebrate good news... I found out yesterday that I got the job as relief manager at Foley Towers, starting mid-August once my touring is done and going until the end of October when I invade on my brother in Armenia. How perfect is that? Very excited! My good friends Roz & Nick will be the managers and I will work 2.5 days a week (13 hour days but on duty for full 24 hour period), leaving me loads of time to enjoy my last while in NZ. Amazing how much the city has become home to me in such a short time.

So yeah, a stop for cheese, cookies and lunch and here we are in Oamaru, hanging out with our webbed waddling friends. Tomorrow it's off to Dunedin!

Flash new design don't you reckon?

It's not just pretty, it's pretty functional... now you can add comments on the bottom of each post! I know, I said I wasn't going to add that in (for fear that the attention may briefly be taken off me and my self-absorbed life) but I've succombed to the pressure of being 2 months behind in emailing and am hoping this way I can actually get back to you all. And so that I can ask questions as they randomly appear in my head. Again, it's all about me. Note I haven't mentioned the benefits for you. All me.

So to start with question 1 ... I lost my links trying to add the bling. Fellow bloggers, how do I get them back and reconnect with all of you? Please help!