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Published: August 9th 2007
Luckily for our bank balance we managed to drag ourselves away from Queenstown. After our very heavy session celebrating our bungy jump and only having 2 hours sleep we boarded the bottom bus to explore the wildlife and scenery of the far south of the south island. Our first stop was on the east coast at Dunedin, a small town with a Scottish feel to it, famous for having the world's steepest street - Baldwin Street. The city layout was based on the same plans as Edinburgh and even the name 'Dunedin' means Edinburgh in Celtic. Tired and hungover from the previous night's antics we arrived in Dunedin and Ben went straight back to bed! Although feeling rough I decided to go exploring and visited the local Albatross Sanctuary before it started to pour with rain. It is rare to see the albatross on land as they spend the majority of their time fishing at sea but I was lucky enough to sight a baby albatross nestling on the banks of the peninsula and an adult soaring above me with an impressive wing span of 3 metres!
The plan for day 2 was to drive from Dunedin to Invercargill through the
Catlins with the chance to spot some of the native wildlife along the way. We went for a walk along the beach in search of sealions and just when we thought we weren't going to see any a huge black male was spotted dozing in the sand dunes. He didn't seem too impressed with us interupting his afternnon nap and let out a massive raw sending half of our group running for cover. On our walk back to the bus Ben managed to spot another sealion asleep in the sand dunes, this time a female and grey in colour. We continued en-route to Invercargill stopping at Curio Bay (the most southern point of mainland NZ) to check out the fossilised forest and a few yellow eyed penguins. We waited around in the freezing cold antarctic wind for over an hour. Eventually 3 penguins waddled up over the rocks to give us a brief glimpse of this rare creature. We arrived in Invercargill (labelled the arsehole of the world by the Rolling Stones back in the 60s) and had just enough time to visit the Speights Ale House to sample some of the local beers.
Day 3 took us from the
'arsehole of the world' to Te Anau stopping along the way at Ray's Farm for some 'interaction' with his sheep. We were given a tour around his farm, having a little ride on his quad bikes and then had the chance to get our hands dirty! After watching the dogs round up the sheep we pulled on some attractive overalls and each had a turn at shearing them. We didn't seem to have much luck... my sheep wouldn't hold still and Ben's sheep insisted on pooing all over his welly boots but it was good fun and a moment we will treasure forever!!!
Our final day on the bottom bus took us on a 2 hour cruise of the Milford Sound, one of NZ's most popular tourist attractions. We cruised around the glacial formed fiord surrounded by snowcapped peaks and 150 metre high waterfalls. We got lucky and were also treated to a pod of dolphins swimming and jumping close to our boat.
We returned to Queenstown and managed to stay away from the many bars and expensive activities. We have now started our journey towards the north island and are spending the weekend in Kaikoura. We arrived today and
spent the afternoon on a boat searching for sperm whales and were rewarded with 3 sightings which were a lot closer than the ones we saw in Australia.
No plans as yet for the weekend but our hostel's got a hot tub and a sauna so we might not venture too far!
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stepehn richard gates
non-member comment
arse
ben your arse looks like its been shaved it was well hairy before you went