Blogs from Oamaru, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 4

In queens town we went to skyline where we saw blankets on blankets of snow. There we made frosty the snowman who got his arm off by Bailey. After we went on the bungie trampaline where i did 9 backflips and Bailey did 0. We went to see the movie the last airbender book 1 water at 6:00pm i loved how nearly every thing was nearly based along the story line of the avatar the last air bender book 1 water. In the morning we drove to dunedin where we watched the AFL grand finals it was a tie 68 - 68. The next day we went to the chinese gardens where we stayde for 2 hours admiring the garden replica from china. Today we drove to town to go to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. I ... read more

Hey y'all We met up with some Texans yesterday. Hence the greeting. As for the title - that has nothing to do with the Texans. They were both girls. More about the balls later though. We may have been a little wrong on our thought that we were "natured out". One day in the larger city of Dunedin was all we needed to set us straight. The town itself was nice. We spent some time at the Southern Pride of NZ beer factory - Speights Brewery. At the end of the obligatory tour, we were set free in the bar, where we were given 30 minutes of free beer and allowed to pour our own beer from the taps. Nancy fell in love with Harvest, with a hint of Apricot (reminded her of Kawarthas Raspberry wheat ... read more

In the morning the sun was out and the weather was beautiful. We went to Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world. At the steepest point it's almost 20 degrees. We decided to walk up it, because we didn't think our van would make it up. It was a tough trek, but didn't take all that long. When we got back to the bottom, we went and got our free certificates that said we walked it. The guy wrote our name and date on them and everything. It was fancy for being a free thing to do. After that we went to the cemetery we were denied going to the night before. It was huge! It was fairly old, and a lot of the headstones had broken or toppled over. There were also ... read more

The mists had descended as we made our way on to the Otago Peninsula. The main focus was to see the albatross fly at the colony at Tairoa Head. We’d checked into an on site van at a caravan park at Portobello and had some very disappointing Speights at the Portobello Hotel, although the Blue Cod & chips from the fish hut next door hit the mark. It was NZ$24 to get into the albatross colony - we settled for watching them fly from just outside. The tourist infrastructure was back with a vengeance on the Peninsula - they wanted $30 to see the same penguins we had seen for free on the beach near Nugget Point. At the highest point of the Peninsula, Lanarch Castle was almost invisible through the mist. We paid the entry ... read more

Saturday 21st March 2009 - A DAY IN OMARAMA....QUIET LITTLE PLACE!! The hostel (Buscott Backpackers) was located just outside of Omarama and the bus driver, as nice as he was, dropped us off on the road just outside the hostel. It feels wrong to call it a hostel as it wasn't your typical backpackers. It was a big farm house located around 1.5km from the road up a gravel path. The place was totally secluded and was a fantastic looking house. It was set out beautifully and had a proper kitchen, dining room and living room that we could use. We were staying in a dorm room out the back and over the garage (like a granny flat). It was nice and the beds weren't bunk beds either...double bonus!! We put our stuff in the room ... read more