Dunedin

The first day we arrived in Dunedin, it was late in the afternoon but the weather was nice. We checked into our hostel, an old Manor House, but we had a nice double room and it heated well. We made our first stop at the steepest residential street in the world called Baldwin Street. It was very steep and I wouldn't envy the people who live along it and have to drive up and down it. I think at it's steepest point the street is at a 19-degree angle. We decided to park at the bottom and walk up the hill--luckily a large chunk of the sidewalk was actually steps, which made it a bit easier. 

The next day we headed off in the afternoon to do a Speight's Brewery tour. Speight's is the other big brewery in the South Island, and a bit older than Monteith's. It was in an old brick building, dating back to the early 1900s (there was a previous building made in the late 1800s, with the brick building built over it). The brewery was one of the few left in the world to do gravity-fed brewing, where all the different processes are on different floors and everything runs downward to the next floor--so you don't have to pump things as much. It was really cool and the building itself was a bit nicer to look at than the Monteith's brewery--though I think I prefer the Monteith's beer. 

However, the brewery still uses large wooden brew tanks, the only one left in the world the guy said, made out of New Zealand Kauri trees. It was really cool and the tour guide was nice--it was only us and an older Aussie couple on the tour--and at the end you got to pour and taste all the beer you wanted for about 30 min. I just had a small taste of their 6 different beers. 

We had bought a Speight's Brewery and Cadbury Factory tour combo and rushed over to the Cadbury Factory to try and make the last tour of the day--but we just missed it by about 10 minutes, so we made a booking for one first thing the next morning at 9 a.m. 

So it was up early the next day to visit the only Cadbury chocolate factory in NZ--but we got lots of free chocolate out of it! Our tour guide was, oddly enough, another American from New Hampshire. She was in NZ on a working holiday with her husband and they decided to settle in Dunedin. She was really nice and it was only John and I on the tour so it felt like a private deal. It was a good time and we loved all the free chocolate! We also got to see a chocolate waterfall. They have two old storage silos and in one they keep chocolate crumb and in the other they turned it into a tourist thing with a chocolate waterfall falling from the top into a big funnel. It was cool. We left with a nice stash of Cadbury chocolate.

That afternoon, after lunch, we headed out to the Otago Peninsula. Our first stop was the only castle in New Zealand, built by an guy named William Larnach. He was a big businessman who built the place for his wife, who was descended from French nobility. Apparently she wasn't very impressed with the place. He married twice more, and in the late 1800s shot himself with a  pistol in an empty parliament room as he was going bankrupt and his third young wife was suspected of having an affair with his son. The place went into a bit of disrepair before another family bought it several years ago and fixed it back up.

Now, they do tours and hold a lot of events like weddings and there is also accommodation there.

It's not really a true castle, it just looks a bit castle-like from the outside. On the inside, it just looks like a nice victorian house. You couldn't take pictures on the inside, but you could once you got to the tower.

 Most of the rooms were just your typical, nice Victorian room, but there was one called "Constance's Boudoir" that was quite interesting. Apparently it was the "boudoir" of the guy's third wife and so the room still contained her wedding dress and other clothing items and nick-nacks. The room had all the curtain's shut and a big black curtain hung over the doorway--presumably to keep the light and warmth out to preserve the old clothing. However, strung up on the ceiling was a mannequin of a girl with a bluish tinge all over so it looked like a dead person and she was wearing Victorian pajamas. I guess they wanted to make it look like a ghost and I must admit it was rather creepy. Didn't really fit with the ambiance of the rest of the house. 

The gardens of the house were also nice, though. They had different sections with different-looking gardens. They also had a bit of an Alice in Wonderland theme as they had a statue of Alice with the flamingo croquet mallet, stone busts of the Queen and King of Hearts, and a hidden Cheshire Cat that was actually on the branch of the big tree in the front lawn. 

After leaving the Castle, we headed out to a place called Sandfly point where we had read that you could spot sea lions on the beach. You had to walk down a bunch of sand dunes to get there, which was very strenuous in the walk back up. However, we did see several sea lions playing on the beach. We also saw a mother and pups, as well as some big dudes all playing on the beach. We kept our distance as sea lions can be quite aggressive, but I had my telephoto lens, so I was able to get some good pictures. 

Our next stop was at the very tip of the peninsula, where we read you could spot blue penguins returning at dusk. We waited for a bit, but it just got too cold to stand on the beach, so we headed back into town. However, we were right next to the Albatross Center where they have the only mainland Albatross colony in New Zealand. We didn't actually visit the colony cause you had to pay, but we saw an Albatross fly off into the sunset as we were leaving the car park. We also caught a pretty sunset right over the cliff.

The next morning we had some time to waste before we were to check in at our backpackers in the town of Oamaru up the coast. So we headed to a small beach walk just outside of town called Tunnel Beach. We encountered an obliterated car in the parking lot, complete demolished by fire. There was a cop car sitting right next to it--not sure what happened there. 

But we made our way down the rather slippery and muddy path to the beach. Right at the end there was a tunnel that led down through the rock onto the beach. It was a really nice beach with cool rock formations.

It was a nice visit until John wanted his picture on one of the rocks as the tide came in. As I was taking the picture, they tide came up even further and as I was in a little corner I had nowhere to go and my shoes and bottom of my pants got soaked. Not a happy camper. 

I stuck my shoes on the back of the car to dry in the sunlight as we made our way up to Oamaru.