The hostel we stayed at in the southeast corner of the south island was fantastic - a converted 100 year old hospital - rambling with excellent wood floors. Andrea and I focused on building our cardio base by riding razor scooters up and down the main hallway. Also fantastic body surfing, and we saw penguins strolling up the beach!
Rest assured that while the “Usually it’s open from 2-4pm” approach to customer service may be long gone from your home town, it is alive and well in New Zealand. The lap pool we hoped to swim at in the Catlins was supposed to be open from 2-4 that day, and again from 6-8. Sadly it was closed because the supervisor had left the county and forgot to tell anyone (true story).
Yes, we saw penguins -- both of them! The duo truly surprised me; I expected there to be either zero or lots and lots. They waddled very sweetly and slowly from the beach into the tall grass above the beach and completely disappeared -- not sure how many were in there with them invisible to us!
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