Greetings from Brighton beach (NZ)

We had only planned to stay for one night in Queenstown, but overnight a blizzard covered the ground with a thick blanket of snow which even forced the ski slopes to close for the day. The snow also blocked all of the roads out of town so we were stuck with nothing to do except to sit in pubs drinking bad Guinness (and it wasn't just us; according to a newspaper article, 62% of people asked were 'very disappointed' by NZ Guinness).

When the roads were finally cleared we headed across the country to the east coast, which has some of NZ's rarest wildlife. Our first stop was the Otago Peninsula, home to one of the few albatross colonies outside of Antartica. Here we saw great fat (8kg!) albatross chicks, who grow to twice the size of their parents before they learn to fly. They sat stupidly on their nests, exposed to the freezing cold wind and looking just like oversized fluffy slippers. Afterwards we walked down to a small beach where we watched the resident Blue Penguins (the smallest penguins in the world) come out of the sea and onto land for the night.

The following day we stopped at a place called Moeraki (just down the road from Shag Point!) which has some perfectly spherical boulders scattered along the beach. They were just big rocks really, but made for some nice photos.

Further north we saw some Yellow-eyed Penguins which live in a colony near the town of Oamaru. They emerge from the sea in the late afternoon, but it takes them several tries before they make it ashore as every time they nearly get there they are swept back to sea by a big wave. Once they get onto the beach they then have to climb up a steep cliff-face to their nests, no easy task on tiny penguin legs. The first penguin to make it up there was a bit of a bully who then blocked the others' paths and attacked them when they tried to pass, tilting his head back and emitting a piercing scream from deep in his throat.

We took a slight detour en route to Christchurch to visit Brighton. Just like the British one it is a cute little seaside town, although the New Zealand version has a population of about 100 and their beach is sandy, and apparently their Pride parade isn't much to write home about.
After a day's shopping in Christchurch we headed north to a town called Kaikoura where we went out on a boat trip and saw four sperm whales. They were massive creatures, at least the size of our boat, and each one hung around for a few minutes blowing water out of its blowhole, before flicking its tail into the air and diving back to the bottom of the sea. We also saw some fur seals who swam past on their sides waving at us with their flippers, and a couple of adult albatrosses, no doubt out looking for more fish to feed to their fat chicks.

Our last stop in New Zealand was a spa town called Hanmer Springs where we spent two days soaking the cold out of our bones in preparation for the tropical heat of Darwin, in northern Australia, where we fly tomorrow.