Done-in In Dunedin (how's that for aliteration!)

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One of the cool things about New Zealand's South Island is the abundance of unusual wildlife that is available to anyone to go and see. Our campsite for the night was not far from a place called Shag Point which we drove to first thing to have a spot of breafast before wandering over to the cliffs and finding a handful of seals basking on the rocks below. A few minutes' drive away was a viewing area for yellow eyed penguins but we were there way too early and the penguins had all gone swimming for the day (well, the weather was nice so who can blame them?). The penguins don't come ashore again until early evening, so we cursed our rotten luck to have come at the wrong time of day.

Rather than wait around for about 7 hours, we opted to drive straight down to Dunedin, one of the few cities on the South Island. Reputed to have a real Scottish influence in the architecture, we unfortunately didn't get a chance to see any of it. The city's road traffic system and parking facilities really arean't geared up for campervans and we had great difficulty finding anywhere to stop for longer than 30 minutes. We had to pass up the notion of visiting the Cadbury chocolate factory and finding an internet cafe and instead concentrated all our efforts on making it to the supermarket so we could stock up on much needed groceries. With parking restricted to just 1 hour there too, we felt like Dunedin was not being very friendly and so we got the hell out again as quickly as we could. That was easier said than done owing to the sheer craziness of the other road users - cars and pedestrians alike just seemed to ignore the rules of the road and poor Glynn did a fantastic job of negocitating each and every hazard successfully. It was probably the worst driving we have encountered since leaving China - and that includes Bangkok!

We aimed to park up for the night somewhere along the coast south of Dunedin but instead encountered mile upon mile of gravel road with nowhere to pull over for 5 minutes never mind actually camp. Our journey had taken us to Summerhill, Tokomouth and Milton where we saw lots of lovely scenery but we couldn't get out of the van enjoy any of it. We drove over 40km on one difficult gravel road alone only to find we couldn't stop anywhere.

After a brief stop in Balclutha, we arrived in the Catlins Forest, supposedly one of South Island's most beautiful areas. Again we drove around and again we couldn't find anywhere to park for free so we had to relent and book ourselves into an official campsite again sooner than we had budgeted for. Thankfully it was the cheapest of all the powered campsites so for far at just NZ$20 per night but we arrived so late in the evening and so tired from all the pointless driving around that we didn't have the energy to make it down to the pretty looking beach at Pounawea, where we had finally found ourselves. Not a brilliant day by any stretch of the imagination.

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Photos

Tickle Tickle
I bet you didn't know that seals love to have their tummies tickled, as Glynn demonstrates here.

Spot the Seals
Ok, so seal spotting isn't much of a challenge for Jude.

Sleepy Seal
Too cute for words!