BACK HOME: Day 7: Gimpy & the One-eye Penguin

Gimpy the lamb he's the star of the day
Handicap he is but rather nimble I say
Grab him for photos he will never obey
But feed him milk & happily he'll stay

The one-eye penguin has no name
Unlike the others she's not the same
Put him in the water & out she came
I must say that's a little lame

Set on a beautiful, sheltered harbour and overlooked by craggy volcanic hills, Akaroa is a popular resort village, some 80km east of Christchurch. We were supposed to visit a Korean lavender field on our way but they were closed that day - not a pity, we realized the field was about the size of a king size bed.

On the way to Akaroa

Anyway, our main purpose was the penguin tour at Pohatu bay (also known as flea bay), which laopo had been so looking forward to, but it turned out to be 'somewhat' disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I think we both liked it a lot. In fact, we thought it would be good to stay overnight at Pohatu and do a night penguin watch. But the day penguin tour wasn't really what I expected, though it was also enjoyable.

Akaroa

Shireen, our guide, owned the farm at Pohatu bay and had been working over the last two decades protecting White-flippered Penguins from introduced predators. Another couple (+ kid) was supposed to do canoeing but had to join us, albeit reluctantly, due to bad weather and had the word pissed written all over their faces. Shireen had to coax them like little kids and even revealed that her husband died at sea, so she tend to be more careful. In the end, the weather turned out okay, so she took them out the bay anyway.

*** As an aside: This is Weta, apparently some ancient "crockroach-like" insect that likes dark places, so they placed wooden structures with dark pockets to hide, to keep track & see if they are in danger of disappearing. They are as old as the dinosaurs but are now endangered because of forest fire & predators - dogs/cats/rats/birds/sheep (which could step on them).

Amazing but true .......Over one hundred years ago there was a scientist whose name was Walter Buller. He wanted to keep some weta for his insect collection so he needed some dead ones. Sir Walter proceeded to kill some weta but it was not that easy…… weta have been around since before the dinosaurs so they must be pretty tough right? RIGHT! One of the wetas was held under water for four days and survived, another survived being dropped into near-boiling water (ouch) and one chewed its way out of Sir Walter's handkerchief!***

With Shireen out, her bubbly niece was assigned to show us as many penguins as she could. Problem is the penguins have all gone out to hunt, leaving the babies in the nest, so there weren't really much to see. She was nice enough to walk us around to see where the penguins would have been while uncovering each nest to wake the babies from their sleep. And share the kitten they found the previous night - which laopo would normally go gaga over, but that day, she simply wasn't interested...penguins, where are the penguins?

The only consolation was this one-eye blue penguin.