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Published: March 5th 2009
Despite the natural beauty of the Fiordland Naional Park, the constant rain had driven our camping experience down, and we were eager to find some sun (or no sun for that matter, as long as the ground wasn't like a swamp and we weren't kept up all night with the drumming of rain!) so we headed to the city of Dunedin, which is known as NZ's "Scottish city" as it is twinned with Edinburgh. As I have never been to Scotland I cant say the similarities stood out - I guess it is more of a historical tie, however there was a statue of Robert Burns and several tacky Scottish tourist shops (tartan kilt and ginger wig anyone???), so there is obviously an attraction for some!
However Dunedin is mainly known as one of NZ's biggest student cities, and is also a huge eco-tourism area due to the Otago peninsula which is rich in diverse wildlife from rare penguins to seals, albatross and dolphins. It is also the home of both the Speight's Brewery and Cadbury's world!
After taking the generic sightseeing tour around the city on our first day, we decided to head over to the Otago Peninsula
to try and spot some rare yellow eyed penguins from the hide, and after a beautiful drive our of the city we began to reach some of the beaches and found the one renowned as the perfect spot to find the penguins. On the approach to the beach and hide we saw several signs highlighting how you must be discreet, quiet and out of sight otherwise the penguins wont leave the water as they are too afraid. So we quietly walked across the beach and once we got closer to the hide we saw a group of people, and as we got closer it was revealed as a group of German tourists who thought it would be a good idea to sit in the middle of the beach with huge camera's as the penguin's wouldn't notice them - they had put towels over their heads and camera's so they wouldn't be noticed! It made the whole search for penguins pointless and we decided it a waste of time to sit in the hide 30 metres away from the beach, so we decided to go and find some sea lions instead, and we were not disappointed! There were several on the
beach and they decided to put a show on for the tourists by making lots of noise and playing with each other - it was incredible.
The next day we booked onto the Speights brewery tour. Speights is a beer I had never heard of before, as they don't export their produce and it is a proud South Island beer. The tour was interesting and gave a good insight as to how they brew, but the most fun was had in the novelty bar, where you could pour your own beer and drink as much of their seven variety ales in the space of 30 minutes!! It was noticeable how all the New Zealanders sampled a small amount of each and left, whereas the Brits and Aussies thought it a competition to drink as much as possible!
Before we left the city we decided to check out what is possible the most bizarre tourist attraction we have seen to date.....the worlds steepest street!! It measures at about 37degrees, which doesn't sound a lot, but for a residential street it was insane. We saw one person come down on a bike and he was going to fast he couldn't
Dunedin
"Scottish architecture"...if that makes any sense!physically brake enough to stop!
From Dunedin we decided to head north as we were flying out of Christchurch in just over a week and had a few final things we really wanted to see. Just outside of the city we stopped off in Oamaru, New Zealands penguin capital, and saw their famous boulders (which look like marbles thrown on the beach) before continuing towards Mt Cook, NZ's biggest mountain.
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