From the Waitaka valley we turned south to Oamaru. This was a major port and is the first town-sized Scottish settlement in this most Caledonian of colonies. The names are redolent of trout in granite streams; Usk Street and Glendale. (Though someone has also been here from the East of England, given the presence of the Yare and Lynn in the street atlas.) The architecture has decorations often foresworn in the dour North but is unmistakably Scottish in its churches and grand public buildings. Much of it is in the lovely whitestone of this area, a bright limestone which wears remarkably well and is easy to quarry.
Just outside Oamaru there are colonies of both Little Blue and Yellow-Eared penguins. The latter are now rare and protected, and we've never seen them before, so we went to Bushy Bay. Here DOC have created a cliff top walkway and hide, to stop people frightening these nervous birds off their nests. It's an excellent facility with a grandstand view of the penguins emerging from the kelp and surf.
The Maori name is hoiho, which means noisy bird. Very apt as the penguins are loud! The chicks on the well-hidden nests scream loudly, sometimes sounding like a baby abandoned in the bush. The adults talk, and often launch into loud screams, trills and trumpets. They can be aggressive. We saw two birds fighting on the beach and despite being perhaps 25m above could hear them clearly.