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. 

Invercarrrrrgil and The Catlins

Upon arrival into Invercargill, we actually encountered quite nice weather. There was also a weird orangish tinge to the sky in the distance--most likely the ash cloud from the Chilean volcano that has plagued Australasia for the better part of three weeks. It made for some nice sunsets, though. 

Our first stop in town was to visit Alice at her work. It wasn't too busy, so after signing a paper we were able to go into the back and watch her take x-rays of a nice dog named Sly. We also got to hear stories about a crazy cat lady. Good times.

After that we grabbed some lunch and headed back to her place where we were excitedly greeted by her dog Hank and her cat Yeti. Despite being stereotypical enemy animals, Hank and Yeti got on quite well. They would play with each other, usually Hank would pin the cat down and chew on his head--the cat would give it right back, though. It was funny to watch. During the day, when Alice is at work, apparently the two like to cuddle in her bed together. 

After Alice went back to work, John and I ventured out to the town of Bluff at the tip of the South Island (though not the Southernmost point, which is a few kilometers down the coast). We drove our car up to Bluff hill, where it was extremely windy but gave a nice view of the harbor and out to Stewart Island.  

John and I wanted to make a trip out to Stewart Island, as apparently that is the best place to catch sight of Kiwis in the wild. Unfortunately, the ferry out to Stewart cost $66 one way per person--which was just a bit too much for us to afford that late in our travels. 

It was still a nice day, though, and so we did a bit more looking around Bluff--heading down to the point where Highway 1 ends and so there is one of those sign posts that tell you how far away different cities are. 

We also found a nice little beach area where you could find Paua. Much too cold to go in the water, though, so we just enjoyed the view. 

After that we made a quick stop at the museum in Invercargill called Southland. For being in such an unexciting town, it was actually a pretty good museum. They had lots of nice natural history exhibits and they also had a whole area of Tuatara lizards. However, this place had baby lizards as well as adults and it was so neat to watch the little ones, that are much more active than their adult counterparts! 

When we returned back to the apartment, we met Alice's flatmate David. Nice guy, and that night while we ate the yummy moroccan stew John and I cooked, he introduced us to the TV show "Breaking Bad". He had shown the first episode to Alice the night before and over the three nights we were there we finished the entire first season. Granted it was only 7 episodes, but we are now officially hooked!

The second day we were there we just hung around, as Alice had to work. We watched some movies, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Abyss, and played with the animals. The night before we had let the cat hang around the living room, even though John and I were sleeping in there on an air mattress. After that, we kept the cat in the laundry room with a bed and it's litter box overnight, as it is nocturnal and kept walking on us at, oh, 4 a.m. It was pizza and more Breaking Bad that second night.

The last day, Alice didn't have work and so we took Hank and headed to the area just east of Invercargill called the Catlins. It was a lot of driving, but still very scenic, with several stops for a few walks to some waterfalls. The weather was a bit odd, thus very typical New Zealand, as we drove through patches of cloud, sunshine, rain, and rain/sunshine mix. 

One of our first stops was in an area called Curio Bay and an old petrified Jurassic forrest. It was really cool, as you could see the grain of the wood in the rock. It looked like it could still be wood, but it was all petrified and hard as stone. It was cool to think how old the forest was, having been around during the Jurassic era. 

Next was a visit to New Zealand's own Niagara Falls! It's a bit of a joke, as the little town is called Niagara and there is a little stream that runs though it. A guy, who had been to America, named a small portion of the stream that cut through rock "Niagara Falls" as a joke. Indeed, it wasn't exactly as big and impressive as the real Niagara Falls.

Our next stop was a really cool waterfall called McLean Falls. It was a really neat waterfall, considering the way it had formed. The rock had formed many steps and so you could climb to different levels of the falls. Even Hank enjoyed it!

He also enjoyed the cow pasture right at the car park. Hank had quite a good time barking at the cows as the munched on grass at the edge of the fence. 

We tried to make one more stop at a rock formation called Cathedral Caves that was a nice 25 minute walk along the beach. Unfortunately, the 2.5 kilometer road leading to the car park  was closed for the winter and the path crossed private land. So that was a no go. However, on our way back to Invercargill we encountered our very first sheep crossing!

Hank REALLY wanted to get out and exercise his sheep dog skills, but ultimately we headed on and listened to Hank whimper for a good few minutes after passing the sheep crossing. 

The last night we all went out to dinner at a local restaurant/tavern called Cabbage Tree. They had quite an extensive menu, but we mostly stuck to the pub fare as it was cheaper. It was a busy place on a Saturday night, but we managed to get a table with some couches and so it was quite a comfy way to eat dinner. 

The next morning it was back to the Catlins again for the night. We stayed in a really nice backpackers back in Curio Bay called the Lazy Dolphin. During the afternoon, since we had already seen most of the sights in the area, we watched another popular Kiwi movie called "Once Were Warriors" it was very good, though much more serious than it's other popular Kiwi counterpart "Boy." 

That evening, we had the opportunity to view the world's rarest penguin, called the yellow-eyed penguin (endemic to New Zealand) as they came home to nest for the evening. They come home right at the petrified forest, which was just down the road. We arrived around 4:00 and stayed a good hour and we managed to see quite a few penguins as they came ashore. It was really cool. 

We also got some video of the penguins, which I will post soon when I get a better internet connection.

The next morning we were off again, after a beautiful sunrise, and finished our tour of the Catlins. We stopped at two nice waterfalls along the way, Both of which were short walks.

We then stopped at another place called Jack's Blowhole. It was a 30 min walk, one way, and a bit more strenuous than I had anticipated. Still, the blowhole is really neat as it just looks like a big hole or cavern in the ground, but it's 200 meters from the sea. So the water rushes in from an underground tunnel and pools into Jack's Blowhole. 

Our final stop was a place called Nugget Point. Supposedly there are sometimes elephant seals, fur seals, and sea lions resting on the rocks at this place. We were so high up from our vantage point, though, that we couldn't see much. We saw some fur seals in the distance laying on the rocks, but none of the other two species. It was still a pretty place. 

We grabbed a quick take away burger on our way out and headed up to Dunedin!