Wednesday 30th March - Dunedin

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It was bloody freezing last night. I got up in the middle of the night to put an extra blanket on the beds. I even put the fan heater on for a while!.
It was a slow start to the day. We got the 11:00 bus into Dunedin.
Dunedin Is the old Gaelic name for Edinburgh. There is a lot of Scottish influence on the city. The municipal building; Town Hall, Station etc. are all built in a Scottish style.

We went to the visitors information centre to book a tour to the Otago Peninsula. Ended up booking a wildlife cruise that leaves at 15:00. So wee have some time to kill. I go for a haircut that passes all of 30 seconds. We go and get some lunch. It is a lovely day and we sit outside at a restaurant called Mash in the Octagon.

A bus picks us up just after 15:00 and takes us along the Otago peninsula where we pass through villages with familiar Scottish names e.g. Waiverley, Portobello, and Musselburgh. Our destination is to Wellers Rock near the end of the peninsula where we board our vessel the M.V. Monarch. We sail to Taiaroa Head where there is a breeding ground for Albatross.
We see a host of wildlife that includes:
• Northern Royal Albatross (with a wing span of 3metres)
• White Capped Albatross (With a wing span of 2 metres)
• Bullers Albatross
• Shearwater’s
• New Zealand fur seals
• Blue Penguin
• Spotted Shag
• Little Shag
• Australasian Gannet
The albatross’s are fantastic, The Northern Royal circle high up on the headland. But the White capped and Buller’s come close in by the boat and we are able to get photographs.
The sea gets choppy as we leave the shelter of the peninsula and go out into the open sea and the “roaring forties”, which thankfully isn’t roaring to its full potential today.
We were told at the visitors office that we returned to Dunedin by bus, but as it turns out we ride the boat all the way back down the peninsula into Dunedin, where the minibus takes us back to the camp site. We have a little supper at the camper van and call it a day.

We move on to Timaru tomorrow and then on to Christchurch where we will spend a night in the camper van and one night in an hotel before returning back to the UK on Sunday – Where has the 9 weeks gone??

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