Dunedin

On the way to Dunedin we stopped at a couple of Maori rock art displays (not a lot to see though). We also stopped along the way at the Moreki Rocks, which were really cool natural rock formations littered along the beach. There were loads of these huge big perfectly spherical rocks, some of which had split open as the sea was in the process of eroding them away completely.

Arriving in Dunedin town we headed straight to the closest Top 10 campsite (I had gotten a membership card, so you get discounts there, although they still tend to be the most expensive campsites!). The site had a swimming pool, but I only used it once as it was very small, and was really only for the kiddies.

The campsite was quite a bit outside the city, and would have meant getting buses into town every day, so instead the next day we drove around the hostels asking if we could park in their carparks and use their facilities. Eventually we found one (Pennys Backpackers), and it turned out to be a great place, (only NZ$10 each per night), and so we ended up staying there for a week. It was the first place we'd stayed that offered free internet too, although you'd often have to wait to get a machine, and the connection was quite slow.

So all in all I really liked Dunedin as a town. The backpackers we stayed at was so cool and relaxed that it was great to just stroll about the city during the day, checking out museums and the like, and then back to the backpackers to cook dinner, maybe watch a free DVD or two and catch up on the internet.

We did have a bunch of our food stolen one night though - apparently some stranger guys had come back with a resident guy during the night, and had been asked to leave. It seems they stole a load of food from the communal kitchen just out of spite - very annoying and fustrating for all the people that had stuff taken though.

So probably the highlight of Dunedin was actually Paddies Day. For some reason, unbeknowst to me really, the whole town just really gets into the whole thing. They don't have a parade, but loads of people were walking around (mostly from pub to pub), dressed as leprachauns, wearing green wigs, with their faces painted and carrying green 'Kiss me I'm Irish' balloons! The town's heritage is Scotish, and Protestant Scottish at that, and it doesn't have many Irish connections at all (according to their own museums anyway), and so it all seemed a bit strange. The town is a big university town though, so I suppose most of it is just students having another excuse to go on a bender. Anyway, I thought this was all great, and all the bars were packed - especially the Irish bars of course.

Towards the end of our stay in Dunedin we managed to motivate ourselves enough to explore a bit of the area, and took a full day exploring the Otago Peninsula. First stop was actually in the city itself where we walked up the steepest street in the world - Baldwin Street. It's a bit of a gimmick really, but is genuinely the steepest residential street (disputed of course), with ordinary houses along it's length, and tourists walking up it and taking photos (and a nearby shop issuing 'certificates' for god's sake!). Obviously that stop didn't take too long, and the next stop was just outside the town itself and the top of the hill overlooking the city, Mount Cargill.

The usual brilliant views, and another great cloud-free day, and so we had a lovely relaxed lunch in the van while lying back on the bed and just staring out the van door at the gorgeous sea views. After lunch, while Sarah waited in the van, I did another short hike to the nearby 'organ pipes', a natural basalt rock formation much like the Giants Causeway in Antrim (now the third such formations I've seen), before heading off to explore the rest of the peninsula.

Further along we stopped off at lovely private gardens, and then on to the gardens and walking trail of Larnach Castle (with more great views of course). At the very tip of the peninsula is an albatross colony, but it was mighty expensive to do a tour, and though reluctant, my intuition told me not to bother coughing up just for the chance of seeing the birds. Later we heard from another tourist that it was indeed a ripoff, as the staff there knew there were no birds nesting at that time of year, but still took tourist's money even though they saw nothing. And later on I saw loads of albatross as we sailed across to Stewart Island anyway, so that all worked out quite well really!

Towards the end of the day we headed to another penguin viewing spot, yellow eyed penguins this time. You could pay for a guided tour, but that seemed ridiculous to me, as we had our own van and so we could just make our own way to the public, and free, viewing platform. As with the blue penguins, you can never predict when they're due back to their nests after feeding all day at sea. I had no problem waiting for them, although I could tell Sarah was getting impatient, but after about an hour they started to arrive back onshore. We got much better views of these guys than the blue lads we'd seen previously, and we were very lucky that another tourist beside us lent us her very powerful binoculars (she and her husband had been waiting for nearly 4 hours I think!). They really are so cute waddling along and hopping up onto the rocks, but at this stage it was getting dark and so after watching 5 or 6 returning penguins we headed back to the city.

So eventually it came time to leave Dunedin, and so reluctantly we headed off for our next port of call, the area known as the Catlins.