Maritime wildlife, Westerlies and hobbly boat rides

Where did I stop talking?
Oh yeah. We were in Oamaru. Well, we walked a bit around the (rather beautiful) city, and even went to the movies - for those of you who haven't seen it yet: Despicable Me is a real laugh! :-). We were also waiting for dusk to go to the Blue Penguin Colony. There we saw an amazing number of about 100 penguins come ashore - quite the experience! Those little bastards are again too cute for words, we can line them up next to Kiwi's :-).
After Oamaru, down we went to Moeraki to see the boulders. They're quite impressive; big spherical rocks embedded in the sand and cliffs. Fun to see, and fun to take pictures!
From Moeraki we went straight down to Dunedin. This city is quite nice, but after visiting the obligatory Art Gallery and the few churches, we'd quite had it and made a useful day out of it, reading and sending emails to all you homies and uploading photos in the public library ;-). A day well spent, let's say! The day after we went to see Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. Now, we'd done a lot of steep streets in Dunedin so thought we'd covered them all. But this one, oh my. Luckily we didn't put Tony through the ordeal, the poor boy would've rolled right back down!
More interesting was a visit to the Otago Peninsula, quite close to Dunedin, where we headed straight up to Taiaroa Head. Our late hour of arrival was again rewarded by viewing a few penguins coming ashore - this time in the wild, which was even better than the colony! Good on you, mother nature!
We spent the evening in a great camper ground, where owner Elliott went out of his wits to make it possible for us to see The Lord Of the Rings 2 (which we already wanted to see since Twizel). Elliott also gave us the tip the day after to go and see Allan's Beach. This is a lovely bay on the peninsula where we spotted two real sea lions sleeping on the beach. Booyah, and up go our maritime wildlife grades again! Thanks Elliott, great place to see :-).
From Portobello on the peninsula, on we went down south on a "great endeavour" (so everyone said): a ride through the Catlins. Loads of people had already warned us about winds and snow, but we hadn't seen any of it so weren't really bothered. Indeed, the snow really wasn't a problem, we saw something white laying beside the roads but we as Belgians are used to more of course. The winds, that was something different. Dear god, poor Tony had real trouble to stay on the road, and two or three times the poor bastard almost didn't manage. But in the end he took us where we wanted to go without real trouble. Apart from that, the Catlins had really nice places. From viewing the Pacific at Nugget Point, over a strange blowhole (that unfortunately didn't blow) and some beautiful waterfalls, to a supposed shipwreck: mix it with the winds we had and you have an interesting combination! ;-).
We have now arrived on Stewart Island, after a hellish ferry ride from Invercargill. Honestly, this boat trip isn't for the weak-stomached! I'm still trembling on my legs :-).
The weather has turned really horrid on us (due to 'the Westerlies", as they call it so nicely here), so there's not much we can do except making short walks in the pouring rain (or hail, or snow, or whatever). Of course our hopes stay up and I still believe tomorrow the sun will shine brightly in the sky ;-).
Yours truly will keep you updated!