Since being in Blenheim, I took my first full week of vacation last week and decided to head South. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, "south" no longer means "closer to the equator". Even worse, it's already winter here. Thus, I wasn't thrilled about wearing thermals in June on vacation, but I wanted to check southern New Zealand off my list. It was far better than my expectations! Read on to find out.
Dunedin was the city I was headed to. It's the 2nd largest city in the South Island (behind Christchurch) with a population of about 124,000. Its main industry is education- it is home to University of Otago, NZ's first university. It's a student city, but a historic city, with plenty of nature nearby.
Dunedin would be a killer drive from Blenheim (8 hours), so I found a cheap flight from Christchurch. The drive from Blenheim to Christchurch isn't short either (4 hours), but I got to drive through Kaikoura, home to a fur seal colony! Basically you pull over the side of the road, look over the ledge, and there's dozens and dozens of seals just hanging out!!!
The Kaikoura Coast
Seals on the rocks
Why good morning, Mister Seal!
Dunedin has a neat city center called "The Octagon". The buildings are old and well preserved and supposedly have a Scottish flare (couldn't tell ya, I've never been to Scotland (yet)). The word "Dunedin" actually is Gaelic for Edinburgh. Ok, enough history.
Some of the old buildings
As I was taking this photo, I noticed a huge group of people gathering on the corner on the left.
The next thing I knew camera crews were setting up, then the street was blocked off by police. Then came the bagpipers!
"What in the Sam Hill was going on????" ---as my Pop would've said.
And then a Clydesdale came clop-clopping along...
And more Clydesdales!
Why hello there, Mister Horse!
And this one was getting feisty!
And mad props to the volunteers like this one, part of the "pit crew" :)
After that unexpected parade, I was excited to see what else Dunedin had in store. I booked an evening tour of the Speight's Brewery--- a real South Island iconic beer. One of their slogans is "Pride of the South".
Water. (sorry to disappoint, you thought I was going to say beer, weren't you?!) Anyhoo, the water comes from a spring deep below the ground, and the water is fresher than fresh! And free, 24/7!
The tour cost about $20 but was awesome and VERY educational. I learned about how the ancient Egyptians made beer--- from the leftover fermented liquid in the containers where they raised the dough for bread!
Captain Cook (below) made the first beer in New Zealand. Good man. :)
This is how "Quality Assurance" for beer was done in the olden days. They would spill a pitcher of beer on a bench like the one below, then a "tester" would sit on it for 15 minutes. If his butt stuck to the bench when he went to get up, the beer was no good--- too much sugar!!! Cool, eh?
The huge copper kettles where the water for the beer is treated...
A big, noisy Malt Mill
The tasting part of the tour was fun-- we got to pour our own samples!
The next day it was time to explore the Otago Peninsula- a long hilly inlet of land just east of Dunedin that's actually remnants of an old, dormant volcano. It's often called the Wildlife Capital of NZ.
I booked a Wildlife Tour for the afternoon. The first stop was the Royal Albatross Centre, home of the only mainland albatross breeding colony in the southern hemisphere. I knew nothing about these birds before coming here. First of all, they're HUGE (wingspan of 3meters---aka 9'6"!!!). The birds arrive in September, make their nest in November and incubate their egg for 11wks. The babies hatch in Jan-Feb, then the parents feed their babes for the first few months. The baby birds really never leave the colony other than for a little waddle around. Their first flight EVER is when they leave the colony--usually all the way across the Pacific Ocean to South America! That's an INSANE first test-flight, doncha think?
Here is the hill of the colony. The little tufts of white are baby albatross chicks.
Here's the best picture I could get of one of the chicks when it lifted its head from a nap.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see any of the HUGE parents fly in to feed their babies. Kind of disappointing. But I did get to see something almost as cool. On the bottom of the hill were these well formed mounds of dirt....
As we were patiently watching and waiting for the giant albatross parents to come, a huuuuge swarm of black birds kept circling the hill. Kind of eerie!
At the same time, they all gently landed on their respective little mounds. Here they were shag nests! Hundreds of shags. Quite cool.
The next stop of the tour was a private beach leased by the company, where we were promised we'd see sea lions and the rare yellow-eyed penguin.
Hello, Mister Sea Lion!
YAWN!
It wouldn't be a Lindsay blog without a rainbow, would it?
And finally the amazing penguins! The yellow-eyed penguins are native to New Zealand and are an endangered species--- only about 4000 of them exist. They're so special, they're actually on the back of the NZ $5 bill!
They like to live in the forest or scrub lands. How weird is that! Here's the hill where we went to check them out. It was fun to watch them hop up the hill like bunnies! Who knew?!?
At around 5pm every day, the penguins come into shore after an afternoon feeding in the water. *Primo* penguin viewing time, according to our tourguide. Here comes one!
Two more, coming in after a long afternoon feast at sea.
United at last! Haha.
As they hopped up the hill to their nests, I got this close up shot. So cool! Can you see the yellow eyes?
A great day full of wildlife on the Otago Peninsula.
The next day I booked a tour to see the Deep South of New Zealand... all the way down to the Southern Coast!
The van stopped at Gore. I got out of the van to take these two photos--- the highlights of the town.
Gore: World Capital of Brown Trout Fishing
Gore: New Zealand's Capital of Country Music
Ok, back in the van. On to Invercargill!!!
Invercargill is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most Southern cities in the WORLD!
Just in case you were curious, check out the world map below (thanks statravel.com)
New Zealand is little bitty orange thing on lower right hand side, southeast of Australia.
With kudos to Wikipedia.com, this map below shows the South Island of NZ. The green area in Invercargill. You can't get much more south than this!!!
Other than the claim to fame that you've visited NZ's southermost city, not much else going on here, except a chance to see tuataras.
Not just statues--- real live ones too!
Tuataras are rare, medium-sized reptiles found only in New Zealand. Their pretty much the only living dinosaur left. The rest of their species died off over 60 million years ago! They can be spotted in nature, or conveniently at the Invercargill Information Centre display. :)
After the (extremely) brief stops in Gore and Invercargill, we were off to see the Catlins Coast--- a beautiful stretch of the Southern Coast of New Zealand. The only thing that wasn't beautiful was the weather. It rained buckets and the wind was insane!
Waipapa Point
Waipapa Windsobaditalmostblewmeover
Did you know there was a Niagara Falls in New Zealand, too?
Named by some smart-ass surveyor with a sense of humor. This is it. Talk about practical tourist joke!
The crazy rain led to some good waterfall sight-seeing. Here are the McLean Falls...
And the Purakaunui Falls...
These rocky islets are called Nugget Point.
The waves were CRASHING into the rocks like mad! Check out all that whitewater!
The narrow path out to the Nugget Point Lighthouse
We saw a few penguins on the Catlins Coast as well but none as clear or close up as on the Otago Peninsula.
The next morning I woke up early to conquer a walk up the Steepest Street in the World!!
Baldwin Street is the Guiness Book of World Records Steepest Residential Street in the World. Here's the view from the bottom...
**Insert ten minute walk of huffing and puffing here**
And here's the view from the top!
FYI, there's a water fountain at the top. Maybe I should set up a clinic up there and sell asthma inhalers up there, too ;)
Here's the steepest portion, where the gradient is calculated to be 35%. That means, for every 2.86 meters you walk horizontally, you gain 1 meter in elevation.
I think this house photo shows it better, though!
After my morning uphill stroll, I planned a relaxing afternoon on the Taieri Gorge Railway, a four hour return trip from Dunedin to Pukerangi.
The Dunedin Railway Station is another stunning historic building.
Ready for my relaxing railroad ride :)
So many passes along beautiful viaducts along the Taieri River...
My fave photo!
My trip to Dunedin wouldn't be complete if chocoholic Linz didn't check out the Cadbury Factory!!
YUM! Unlike the Hershey Chocolate World Tour, you have to pay a few bucks for the Cadbury Tour. But it's much longer, you get to tour the actual factory, you get to see the products being made, and you get a whole bagful of samples and even get to try some freshly made liquid chocolate! WIN!
They don't allow cameras on the tour, sadly. But there are fun old Cadbury cars to pose with at the end :)
Speights, Clydesdales, Sealions, Penguins, Waterfalls, Tuataras, Steep Streets, Railways, and Chocolate---- a FANTASTIC whirlwind tour of the Southern South Island.
Cheers til Next Time!
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