Day 14: Happy Fifth of July!

When it gets down to -5 C (23 F) outside overnight, it still gets pretty cold inside an unheated campervan; I woke up several times soon after I went to bed as my nose kept getting cold. But either my body increased the blood flow to my nose, or my brain told my nose to “deal with it”, as the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off at 7:30 a.m.

Due to the cold, I “snoozed” the alarm for 10 minutes, but eventually decided to get up and face the cold. I set off for the showers in my shower clogs, socks, flannel pants, T-shirt, windproof jacket, and leather jacket (a real fashion plate, for sure), The showers were coin-operated: $2 for 10 minutes, but the water was HOT and worth the money. I finished the morning routine, went back to the van, and changed into a more normal ensemble. I packed up the bedding and got the van ready for travel.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was able to buy some food supplies since I now have the space to carry them – so today’s breakfast was a cup of coffee and puffed wheat cereal with milk. It may not sound like much, but it tasted REALLY good; that’s the first milk I’ve had since leaving home, except for what you add to tea in the morning (unless you’re some type of uncivilized (sic) beast, you put milk in your tea).

Then I called home, where the big Fourth of July Kings Mill cookout was underway; I wished them a happy Fourth, and my wife wished me a happy Fifth. It was great to talk to everyone, and it sounds like everyone was having a good time back home. Next year, I plan to be there….

The wheels started turning at 10:15 a.m., headed west on SH 8 toward Mt. Cook. About 4 km west of town, I saw the turn for the Mt. John observatory. Having previously visited the Mt. Palomar, Kitts Peak, Yerkes, and other observatories in the states, I decided to visit.

The telescope in the background is their 16-incher – a pretty good sized telescope, although it pales in comparison to the 100-incher at Mt. Palomar. There is so little air or light pollution here, however, that I imagine they get some pretty good views from it. In their maintenance building, they also had what is, to the best of my knowledge, the world’s highest milling machine:

(OK, since we were only at about 1,600 meters (5,000 feet), it may not be the highest mill in the world, as any mill in Denver would beat it. But it’s the highest mill that I can ever recall seeing.) I departed the observatory, heading toward Mt. Cook. The day was warming nicely, and it was near 10 C when I arrived at the outlook.

One of the problems of solo travel is that none of your pictures ever have you in them. Unless, of course, you mount your camera on a tripod (a VERY short tripod if you plan to carry it on a motorcycle), then put the assembly on top of your ice chest in the middle of the parking lot, set up the shot, trip the 10-second timer, run to get in the photo, wait, and then run to move the ice chest out of the middle of the parking lot before someone runs it over.

The photo shows (left to right) the campervan I’m piloting, me, a distant cloud, and Mt. Cook to the right of the cloud. (You’re not seeing the other five attempts that didn’t quite turn out right.) I left Mt. Cook around 12:15, and arrived in Omarama at 1:00. I decided to take the most direct, but still fairly scenic, route back to the east (Pacific) coast via SH 83; I mean, how could you go wrong traveling route 83?

The Pacific came into view around 2:30, and I pulled into Oamaru for food (a loaf of bread and PB&J for dinner) and fuel around 3:00. Oamaru is home to two different penguin colonies: a herd (pod? group? Bunch?) of Blue penguins, which I had seen in captivity at the International Antarctic Center in Christchurch), and a herd of Yellow-Eyed penguins.

Yellow-Eyed penguins are relatively rare, and this group consists of about 60 birds in all. In winter, they swim out to sea to feed around 9:00 a.m., and return about 2 hours before sunset. The guide at the iSite said that they would be returning between 3:15 and 5:15 p.m., and that on a good day, you might see 5 to 20 penguins, whereas you’d see 0 to 5 birds on a bad day. Since it was 3:30 and I wasn’t planning to travel much farther today, I drove out to Bushy Beach to watch.

I stayed until 4:15, and was only able to see one penguin swim by about 100 feet off shore. I would have liked to see one land, but it was still quite a thrill to see one in the wild. Back in the van, I drove the shore route down to Moeraki, where I hope to see the Moeraki boulders tomorrow before continuing south toward Bluff / Invercargill – my southernmost point of this trip. The weather forecast is for a fine start for the day, with clouds moving in during the afternoon. Here’s hoping they’re right; travel is a lot more fun when the sun is out.

Campervan mileage: 272 km for the day