Thursday, February 14, 2013

More Scenic Splendour

We had a wonderful stay in The Catlins. With our 2nd floor guesthouse balcony and lounge area overlooking Porpoise Bay we had non-stop views of dolphins playing all day long, sometimes trying to body surf. We spent a day visiting nearby attractions. The first was Cathedral Caves, which we timed perfectly at low tide, allowing for a mostly 'dry' beach walk that would have disappeared an hour later with a higher tide. There were several caves, the largest providing a 100 metre walk-in with mussels on the walls from the normally-present sea. Other people, just departing as we finished our half hour walk back, would have had to deal with ocean water approaching their knees to get to the caves. We also did short walks to see several waterfalls.....McLean (the nicest), Purakaunui (multi-tiered) , Matui & Horseshoe (average, our standards have risen). We also stopped into Nugget Point to see fur seals and an 1870 lighthouse (still operational) on a very windy hillside spot.

Our next stop was Dunedin, the second largest city on the South Island, with a population of just over 50,000 people, many of them students in this university city. Unfortunately for us it was Uni-week, the start of the school year, and first year students had their parents in town ensuring that they would be "OK", meaning that accommodations were very limited. We had made an on-line booking for a double room the day before arriving at a well reviewed hostel in their only available room. It turned out to be a bunk bed (without a ladder) in a closet where the door would only open half way before hitting the bed.....no room for a table or any other furniture. We politefully declined (I'm sure they understood when they saw we weren't gymnasts) and found a room for 2 nights in a nice motel after a prolonged search. The rest of our time in Dunedin went well. We drove around this Victorian-styled city which had an octagon designed centre of the city and many hills surrounding the downtown area. Baldwin Street, the steepest residential street in the world according to the Guinness World Book of Records, was quite a sight to see. Our pictures make it look relatively flat but it rises 70 metres in a 300 metre stretch which is quite significant. Later this month they have an annual Gutbuster race where contestants run up and down the paved street. The record is just under 2 minutes.....they don't mention the number of casualties or extreme injuries that would occur if anyone fell on the steep pavement....we decided to not even drive our car up the street!

Today we drove around the Otaga Peninsula which is just east of Dunedin. It was a beautiful drive. We followed the shoreline road out to Tairoa Head (30 km's) and back inland on Highcliff Road for great views of the peninsula and Dunedin. We visited the well restored Larnach Castle (originally built in 1871) which sadly had a family history demonstrating once again that money does not buy happiness. At the tip of the peninsula there were sea lions, fur seals, albatross and penguins, which we also observed individually at several other stopover points that we walked to while on the Otaga Peninsula
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Tomorrow we will drive north along the east coast and then duck inland where we plan to explore Mount Cook (highest mountain in NZ).......wrong time of the year for snowboarding activity :-(
After that we will move on to Christchurch where we will complete our month-long visit to New Zealand.
The Catlins - Cathedral Caves

Curio Bay - Yellow-Eyed Penguin

What happens to you when you spend too much time close to the ocean

Backyard pets

McLean Falls

Nugget Point Lighthouse (1870)
Otago Peninsula - sea lion

Dunedin - Railway Station

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