White Flippers and Victorious Tititipounamu

Amazing how just a few degrees more and no wind can make one feel warm, even if it is only 53F degrees.  So we had that kind of morning and the sky was clear and the sea was calm when we arrived at our first destination for the day - Cave Rock (it was so clear, we could see all the way up the coast to the Kaikoura mountain range).

Cave Rock

Exploring tide pools

A tide pool

After checking out some of the anemones in the tide pools on the rocks, we headed over to Taylor's Mistake to hike the Godley Head track and look for endangered White-Flippered Penguins (and http://www.penguin.org.nz/resources/WFPT-Document-1.pdf).  The morning stayed perfect for our exploration of the small 200 meter-stretch of nesting boxes that are protected by a predator-proof fence (built in 2010), lay down a very steep ladder, and are at the base of the cliff and edge of the sea.  These boxes were put in place to both help protect these penguins that only nest in this one spot and off a nearby island, and to help with scientific study of this species.  To our delight and amazement we found two of these beautiful little penguins each in their own little box.

At the start of the hike in search of penguins (we will go almost all the way out to the land mass behind us before we go straight down to the rocks at the water's edge)

Predator proof fence from above

Heading down the ladder to the sea

Exploring the nesting boxes along the shore

A nest box

Amazing!

Hanging out by the nest boxes

Back up at the predator proof fence

After lunch, we explored The Tannery (a historic building from the 1800s that has been rehabilitated into shops) for a short time.

The Tannery

Then, the weather turned colder and cloudy and a little rainy, but we still showed up for our Cricket lesson/match.  Team Tititipounamu was victorious over Team Morepork, 43, 31, and we were all thankful when it was all over.  We did have a fun time learning the game, but think that 5 day matches might be agonizing.

Team Tititipounamu up at bat defending the wicket with Team Morepork out in the field

Victorious or not, happy to not be going on for four more days : )

Thanks for another fun day all! -Meryl