Edinburgh of the south

Town hall
Mr Robert Burns Mr Robert Burns
City arms Cadburys is really popular here
Shy Easter bunny Old university of Otago buildingsSpeights Brewery
Brewery kit
Brewery kit Brewery kit
Pull your own free tasting session
Recreation of an early NZ pub

Tower of the Speights brewery - barrel on top was a trick by an apprentice draftsman. The draftmans added the barrel as a joke to plans but it wasn't spotted by the architect who approved the final plans and so ended up being added by builders. City's world famous train station
Tower of the station

Inside the train station
Inside the train station

Some of the imported tiles
Ducks on pond in the gardens
More ducks - they come really close
Duck!!!

Native parrots in the bird house
Cuddles
quark!!

Stream running through the gardens
Botanical gardens

Botanical gardens
Botanical gardens
Botanical gardens

Rose garden in the botanical gardens
Botanical gardens Otago Peninsula
View from the Peninsula back towards the bay
Usual nesting grounds for Shags
Lighthouse

View of the bay
View of the bay
View of the bay Royal Albatross
Close up

View from the blue eyed penguin reserve - penguins come onto the beach here Blue eyed penguins beach
Arriving
New arrivals
He's coming
Marching along...
Faster faster... Nesting siteYellow eyed penguins
Yellow eyed penguins
Tunnels and walkways in the Penguin reserve

Molting penguin

Sheep wondering around the reserve
Sea lions
Sea lions

We leave from Queenstown for some deep south adventures. I'm now off the normal Kiwi experience bus, and instead I am on the bottom bus. It's a smaller bus that travels the far south of the South Island (following a diamond shape route). Today we are travelling for Dunedin. Dunedin we were told is known as the "Edinburgh of the south". The city and the wider Otago peninsula was first settled by Scots.

The trip down is not a long one and we stop at a number of places for breaks. No real pictureque stops though. When we get to Dundedin we stop at the worlds steppest street. Some of the more adventerous people on the bus attempt to run or walk up. I'm in flip flops and so I aint going no where. This is the first time that it has been cold in New Zealand. I break my jeans out of my bag. The last time I wore jeans I was in Las Vegas more that six weeks ago!!!!!

We arrive at mid day and so there is plenty of time to explore. The city is fairly big by South Island standards and has approximately a hundred thousand people. It is a large student town as the University of Otago, which is New Zealands largest university, is based here. The high street is full of cafes, cheap random stores and there are loads of bars and restaurants. The centre of town is called the Otagon, due to the shape of the central square and the roads running around it. The town centre has a statue of Robbie Burns and everywhere there are traces of the scottish heritage of the town. The city council's arms has a scotman (with kilt) featured.

I'm staying in a hostel above a row of shops, just outside the octagon. The place is like a flat as the furnishings are modern, and there is a massive tv lounge that is at the heart of the hostel. The hostel has a lovely cat that lives there and you can normal find it asleep on the top of the tv.

As Dunedin is an old city (by New Zealand standards) the town has a number of pretty old buildings littering the city centre. The town is also said to be haunted in a number of spots and so I book on a ghost tour of the city. I meet the group and the tour guide (a lady head to toe in leather, with a walking stick and shoes that have 4 inch soles!!!) in the octagon after sunset. We are walked around a few of the older buildings and Karen, the guide, gives us a talk about some of the history of the people that lived in the buildings. This doesnt last too long and we are then whisked into a bus to take us to the cemetary!!! I didnt know that the tour was mostly of a dark cemetary!!!!

On the ride up the hill to the cemetary Karen tells us about what to do if we get scared or a ghost attacks us!!! Attack!!! Karen said that she doesnt believe in nice ghosts and most are trying to scare people to draw off peoples energy. The basic instructions are that we should run down hill and we will find a gate out of the cemetary. I dont like the sound of the tour at this point and the talk about running in an emergency from ghosts trying to hurt you really puts the creeps up me. (Karen says that she gets scared and runs sometimes as well).

We are waiting outside the gates and Karen asks us if anyone suffers from a number of medical conditions. Everyone is looking at each other. We finally leave the bus and head on in the cemetary. Karen said to stay together as ghosts like to pick stragglers off first!!!!! I'm up the front and I have no plans on falling behind!!!! We work our way around the cemetary and everyone is staying close. We head into a enclosed garden within the cemetary. This is apparently a safe spot and so everyone takes a deep breath. We are told a story about someone on a tour a few months ago that thought it would be a good idea to stay behind and try and scare some of the girls that was on the tour. This person was 'attacked' by a ghost. The rest of his group only knew he was missing when they heard horrendous screaming and sobbing. They found the guy in the safe spot cowering in the corner. The rest of the group apperently then got spoked and they all ran from the cemetary!!! When Karen told us this story i was wishing the tour was going to end soon!!!!!

After leaving the safe spot we head into the area where there is the most paranormal activity. We stop under a tree and Karen tells us a story about Ghosts that they saw at this very spot. The ghosts freaked everyone out and they all ran (Karen as well) down the hill. Apparently the ghosts were circling around the top of the tree!!! As soon as the story stopped we heard a screaming and looked behind us to see something moving!!!! Everyone screams (including me) and we all are grabbing at each other (I see two people from the group drop to the floor in the corner of my eye). We then all realise that it was someone playing a trick on us!!! Not funny.

It was actually Karen's husband!!! We leave the cemetary (thankfully we are near the gate) and jump on the bus and have a drink at Karen's pub. We also get our taro cards read.

The next day I am doing a tour of the Cadbury's factory in town. It produces all of NZ's chocolate (and some of Australia's aswell). I was hoping for big things here but the tour ended up lasting about 30 minutes and we didnt really see much. The factory was closed for Good Friday and so there wasnt much to see or do. We did though see a two story chocolate fountain that was housed in a storage silo. It smelt so so so good..... We got some free chocolate at the end and so it wasnt that bad I suppose.

I also get a tour of the Speight brewery and ale house as well on my Combo ticket. Speights is the local ale and it is not exported out of NZ. We get to walk through the brewery. The tour starts at the top and ends at the bottom of the building as the brewery is a gravity assisted operation. The tour is quite informative. The best bit though is the free tasting session at the end. We get around 15 minutes to pull and drink as much beer as we can. There are seven to choose from including an apricot flavoured beer (really good). I down as much as I can manage and Speights is not that bad at all....

I finish the evening by meeting up with some people i met that day and we play pool and drink until the wee small hours (needless to say - I didnt win any games).

The next day I wake up with a small hangover and go for a walk around the botanical gardens. The gardens are at the other end of town and so I walk off the hangover. The gardens are set up a number of hills and so we meander around the park for a few hours stopping at the bird houses to meet the parrots. Someone taught the parrots some choice phrases (and wolf whistling) and so we spend a while there trying to get the parrots to talk to us. We eventually get a wolf whistle out of a green parrot and move on. We leave the park and head towards the Otago museum. Pretty boring stuff really but I have a nice day in the end.

I spend Easter Sunday doing a wildlife tour of the Otago peninsula. The peninsula is home to the only colony of Royal albatrosses that nest on mainland. The closest we get to seeing them is watching them gliding around the peninsula. Its really windy here and most people go in after about 10 minutes. I got a few pictures of the birds - which wasnt easy at all!!!! We jump in the tour bus and head towards theBlue eyed penguin reserve.

Blue eyed penguins are very endangered (around 2,000 penguins left). We walk down to a series of covered tunnels that run through the reserve. We watch as penguins come up the beach and head towards there shelters. The penguins have really good eye sight and so we have to maintain a distance and keep inside the tunnels and hides. The penguins are said to be the oldest penguin in the world and possibly the original species that evolved into the various other species that are still around today. The penguins are said to be unlike other penguins in their social habits. They are very anti-social and will attack anything that wanders into their territory. Our guide said that a penguin once killed a sheep - by stabing it in its neck. Nice.

We wait and watch as a few penguins come up the beach and we follow them to their shelters from tunnels and hides.