The return of Mr Cow

Mr Cow has been a bit disappointed at the way he's missed out on adventures lately. He's been to Queenstown to snowboard twice, but each time he's been packed back into the car and taken down to the medical centre before he got near the snow. He didn't get to ride in a helicopter and worst of all, when Paul and Laura went to Auckland and climbed a volcano, they didn't even take him with them. He wasn't happy and boy did he let them know!


When he heard that Paul and Laura had booked a weekend in Christchurch, the biggest city on New Zealand's South Island, he was in their bag quicker than you can blink.


As soon as the bags were off the plane, Mr Cow was out and looking for things to do. First, Paul and Laura took him to the International Antarctic Centre. Most of the scientists and explorers to go to Antarctica leave from Christchurch, and lots of them help the Centre out.


The first place Mr Cow went in the centre was a room which was as cold and windy as the Antatrctic in summer. Mr Cow went in a skidoo in there (a sort of motorbike made for going on the snow),


then went in an igloo,

and then on a slide made completely from blocks of solid ice.

It was really fun, until they turned the wind machine on. It suddenly got so cold that it made his face hurt to breathe.

Maybe being in the Antarctic wouldn't be fun after all.

He thought that meeting some other animals might be more fun, so he went to find the penguins. At first they were a bit shy, but at feeding time they all came out to play.

Feeding time was pretty cool. The penguins whizzed in and out of the water and their pond had one glass side, so Mr Cow could watch them when they dived down to catch a sinking fish. What Mr Cow didn't know, was that Paul and Laura had arranged for a behind the scenes tour of the penguin centre. He got to see how the pengin tank worked, how the penguins were cared for and best of all, he got to meet one of the penguins being nursed back to heath in the penguin hospital.

The next day he was in for a real treat, they took him to a place called Akaroa to look for dolphins. They went out on a catamaran, crossed Akaroa Harbour and headed out into the Pacific. After about half an hour the crew of the boat called out, they had spotted dolphins.

Mr Cow had forgotten his swimming kit, but Paul and Laura had been lent wetsuits, so in they went. The dolphins were really interested in the swimmers and they came in really close for a look.

Penguins and dolphins made for a great weekend and Mr Cow was really pleased to have been able to go. He just needed to make sure that he could sneak away to Australia with them next weekend.