BACK ON THE EAST COAST (NZ AND SCOTLAND!)

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Hello. Our last days in Queenstown found us travelling up to one of the town's highest points on a gondola (cable car). Unfortunately the weather had turned cold, wet and windy again so the views weren't as good as they might have been. A nice adventure nevertheless. We also had a walk around the town and the lovely lakeside. On our last night we had a nice meal in the hotel before getting to bed at a reasonable hour before our early departure to Dunedin on the Thursday.

As before the bus trip was terrific passing through some outstanding scenery: snow capped mountains, lakes - natural and man made - desolate mountainsides, small towns with Scottish street names. All accompanied by a bright and jolly bus driver's commentary and some awful jokes.

We arrived in Dunedin and found our latest 'digs.' This time a refurbished Brother's Mission surrounded by churches! It is very nice albeit the room is a bit on the small side (No cat-swinging allowed.) But breakfast is included.

Dunedin itself has a very Scottish feel to it - not surprising as it was first inhabited by Scottish settlers and named after Edinburgh. We have had a couple of nights out as per usual touring the local pubs and restaurants. We have also done a lot of sightseeing. The highlight of which so far has been a scenic train ride up the Taieri Gorge, again through some wonderful scenery. The history of the laying of the tracks through the gorge is a testament to those early settlers.

We had an early night last night after watching the All Blacks beat the Springboks in a pub which has a viewing area called the Terrace where you can view a huge screen sitting as if you were in a stadium. Today we have just finished a very interesting guided bus trip around the city - unfortunately the rainy conditions prevented us from taking too many pictures. The rain deciding for us to come and update the diary!

Tomorrow we are going to hire a car and travel south to the most southerly part of the island and hopefully see some of the rare wildlife that abounds in this part of the world.

We understand that you are enjoying a mini heatwave in UK. We don't care, so there!!!

Trust everyone is well. As always we would love to hear from you on our comments board.

Love, Ken & Linda

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Photos

QUEENSTOWN
Ariel view

Dunedin
View from our room

DUNEDIN
One house town passed on our train journey

DUNEDIN
Our train going over a viaduct

DUNEDIN
The Gorge

DUNEDIN
Statue to a sheep dog - don't ask me

DUNEDIN
A wee train station

DUNEDIN
A big huge station

Comments

[Chris and Ruth-Anne]

Hi there
Hi there you two, glad to see all is going well for you in NZ, just a quick tip; when you get down towards Nugget Point don´t miss Surat Bay if possible. It´s not advertised at all but we saw over 20 huge sea lions on the beach there and the locals will be able to direct you. Bye for now. Keep up the blog, pics are great. C and RA.

[George of a Thousand Songs]

Where's The Party
Hi Linda and Ken Looks wonderful glad you are both well. Glad to hear Bill is up and about and using the mobile again. Myself and Kaz met afew of your many friends in town on Friday I pass on all the travel blog stuff to kaz and it does the rounds. Party!! when are you back. George