Oamaru

 Ooh-mah-roo. 

Friendly Bay has a walking path and historical markers, so I spent the afternoon wending my way from marker to marker, my interest ebbing away like the tide. I am always compelled to read every placard and posted sign, and I can say that these were perhaps the dullest I’ve ever come across.  There were some dull photos and some dull primary documents (a newspaper account from the 1880s about an engine on a.. crane? A ship? I can’t even remember. Look, I can happily read about rocks used as infill and look at old photos of men with muttonchops and the exotic New Zealand port of Oamaru, where great breakthroughs in refrigeration were made so that NZ mutton could be exported all over the world. But not when they’re as dry as sawdust muesli. 

The most interesting thing I can say I saw and retained from those information panels was the one that had a broken spot where a wasp might build a very sneaky nest. 

I saw one fairy penguin and a lot of fairy penguin nests (they live in the foundation of the buildings that ring the bay like wharf rats).

  I also saw seals, and was close enough to a few of them that I could tell they were dreaming. One blinked red-rimmed eyes at me and ruffled its stiff whiskers and it made me miss Jelly something fierce.