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Waitake Valley and The Otago Peninsula Photo Log

February 27-28, 2015

After stops along the way and lunch in Oamaru, we made our way out to The Otago Peninsula.

Road Trip Journal – February 27, 2015 (Twizel to Otago Peninsula)

  • Twizel –> Portobello (Otago Peninsula)
  • Stop at Takiroa Maori Rock Art Site. Rock art mostly unimpressive but a good place to stop and stretch.
  • Stop at Elephant Rocks. What an unexpected gem! Bizarre limestone boulders landscape. Fun for climbing.
  • Lunch at The Bridge Cafe in Oamaru. Terrible burgers & fish n chips. Nice location & atmosphere. Probably an excellent coffee shop, but to not recommend for lunch.
  • Stay at Portobello Village Tourist Park on Otago Peninsula. $140/night for fully self-contained tourist flat
From Twizel to Oamaru by way of Takiroa Maori Rock Art Site and Elephant Rocks
First stop was at a Maori Rock Art site
The rock art was mostly unimpressive, but we liked this sailboat
Second stop – Elephant Rocks. A unique limestone rock formation. Used as Aslan’s camp in the Narnia movies. This was an unexpected gem,
Third stop – The town of Oamaru for lunch.
From Oamaru through Dunedin out to Portobello on the Otago Peninsula
The train station in Dunedin – very European
We stayed at The Portobello Tourist Park, and this is a shot of the small town of Portobello

Road Trip Journal – February 28, 2015 (Otago Peninsula)

  • D – walked out to end of peninsula to closed aquarium. Good views. 
  • Family hike at Sandymount. First hiked up to lookout (500m) then to The Chasm (1.2mile). Excellent short easy hike. Deep dark woods. Sheep. Beautiful coastline.
  • Take out dinner at Ric’s Galley. not too expensive but not too good either. Good onion rings & fires. 
  • Nighttime blue penguin viewing at Royal Albatross Center. Booked ahead on bookme.com – $54/family. Not executed very well, but viewing the penguins was well worth it.
Photos from my morning walk out to the end of the peninsula near Portobello
We did the 500m walk to the lookout and then the 1km walk to the Chasm.
The deep dark woods
The Chasm
What do you think, it gets windy here some?
The Ex Wagon enjoying the view
Driving up to The Royal Albatross Center (where we watched the Blue Penguins come ashore) we were awed by a rainbow
The blue penguins are the smallest of all penguins at about 20-30 cm tall and weighing about 1kg. They return back to shore each night just when it’s getting dark and they usually return in groups of 10-20 at a time. This little guy returned on his own about 20 minutes ahead of everyone else.
A “raft” of penguins coming in
So, it was dark and these photos are frustratingly out of focus. But I’m posting them anyway to give an idea of what we saw. If you use your imagination you can appreciate what a site this was and how cute they were.
They would run up the beach very fast and then stop and rest at the rocks. Climbing the rocks was no easy task for such small penguins

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