Dunedin

Well for a day with a slow start, today turned out pretty well!  I'm still in Dunedin.  The plan for today was to spend the morning and early afternoon looking around the city, then the rest of the day was to be spent on a wildlife tour on the Otago Peninsula.

Dunedin city centre is, to be honest, nothing special.  It's nice enough, don't get me wrong, but there was nothing really that I wanted to take photos of.  Maybe I didn't visit the right spots, who knows.  But for a city that is billed as New Zealand's answer to Edinburgh....  I spotted a statue of Robert Burns and one scottish shop, and spent the last hour before my tour sitting on the grass watching the world go by as I was fed up of walking around.

The wildlife tour was fantastic.  I'd been driving and walking around the area thinking that except for the scale of the landscape and the presence of various spiky plants / palm trees / ferns, I could be in North Wales.  Rolling hills, grasslands, sheep, cloud & rain.....  Apparently I'm not far wrong, as among other things, the grass in this part of the world was actually imported from Wales.

The Otago peninsula is home to a breeding colony for the Royal Albatross, so the first stop on our tour (pausing briefly on the way to see some Pied Oystercatchers, Paradise Shelducks and Black Swans) was the viewing ground for the albatross.  There was enough wind that some of the birds were out gliding.  You'd think they were just big seagulls until you saw them next to a gull, at which point you realise they are not just big, they are giant - up to 3.3 metres in wingspan and living up to 60 - 70 years.

From there, we went on to see (and get very close to) New Zealand fur seals, yellow eyed penguins, a huge sealion.  oh, and lots of sheep.

I'm going to head slightly south from here tomorrow and spend a couple of days in the Catlins - a coastal area renowned for rugged coastlines and wildlife.  This will take me more off the beaten track than I have been so far - inasmuch as I'm not expecting to find much (any) wireless internet connectivity.  That said, this blog is going to be late going up as the Dunedin campsite wifi is playing up again.  But all being well, and assuming I don't start suffering internet withdrawal symptoms or weather fronts that force me to change my plans....I'll be posting again on Tuesday from Te Anau.