Blogs from Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 47

Kia Ora one and all! We hope all our friends and loved ones are well. Hope the Americaners had a happy Thanksgiving with lots and lots of turkey and pumpkin pie. We are having a belated Thanksgiving feast tonight, so preparing to burst our waistlines and fall asleep on the couch! Oh, and congratulations to Fiona and Martin on expecting their second bambino!! Well, it's been a while since our last update, mainly because we've taken a break from the hostelling and travelling, and have settled down for a few months. We have settled in Dunedin on the south east coast of the South Island, and have been here for 3 weeks now. It wasn't a place we had planned to visit initially, but I got offered a short term contract down here and now that ... read more

Bit of a cheesy title but you'll be able to see why as the report progresses (if you can't guess already that is). I could have used Rock Bottom, Down but not out, or anything of a similar nature. Sunday 5th November Leaving our camp site we started south for what will probably be one of the last mornings of our travels here in NZ. As we've become accoustomed to recently, the journey was partaken in a veil of rain which didn't stop all day! Anyway, we made our way to the town of Bluff and weren't going to have our day spoilt (too much anyway) by the weather. There was a very useful Heritage trail of the town that we could undertake in our van and we spent a while cruising the streets stopping outside ... read more

Thursday In the morning we did a tour of the Cadbury factory. Efrat is a bit of a chocoholic. The types of chocolate are different from home they have more flavors here- the new ones are black forest gateaux and lemon cheesecake. We got given so chocolate free so got to try some - they like there marshmallow in chocolate - I’m not a fan. Later we went on a trip along Dunedin Peninsular where we stopped at the only mainland Albatross colony and then went to a penguin reserve where we saw some Little blue penguins (fairy penguins) nesting and some rarer Yellow eyed pengins coming back from a day fishing. We were hiding in huts with slits in to lookout on the penguins. We mostly saw the juveniles wandering about as the adults were ... read more

Dunedin or "The Edinurgh of the South" as it's known on account of its architecture and Scottish-influenced history, was a surprise highlight for us. We didn't originally intend to spend more than a day there at best - "drive-thru Dunedin" was the original plan. As it happened, our visit coincided with Dunedin's Fringe Festival, (another parallel with Edinburgh) so we stayed a little longer to soak up the atmosphere and see some "down under" style comedy. Dunedin itself is a perfect gateway city for exploring the Catlins coast, the Otago peninsula and the Cental Otago region. We had two stints in Dunny split by these three excursions - ample time to explore its charms at leisure. Dunedin is definitely a city with a student population at the heart of its culture - lots of bars, cafes ... read more

Today was the last day in Dunedin. In NZ, the day after a wedding is a huge barbecue. Before the event we went to tour the Albatross colony on the Otago Peninsula. The Albatrosses were gone until summer but it was still very cool. We also toured to a couple of other spots around Dunedin and snapped some photos of the beach views.... read more