Deacons Court Dunedin

... the sea was beautiful. A storm was heading our way and the sky was dark and gray, which made the sea look more turquoise. There was a couple of sea lions sleeping on the beach. Our guide told us that they sleep during the day and then head out to sea at dusk to feed. The strange thing was seeing the penguins and seals on the beach, while the sheep grazed on the mountain sides.

... She is off to the North Island and we still have another ten days or so on the south. It was a shame to lose the female element of our group but the journey must continue. Martin keeps saying to me; “We must get another one” like we need to put a note in the 'paper for a cleaner or somethng. In Milford Sound I spotted a condom machine in the toilets which someone had written on 'for refunds please place baby in slot' and it had an arrow pointing to the ...

... largest city in the South Island and as the name suggests it owes it existence to the Scots, much of it was built during the height of a gold so the buildings have a lot of grandeur.
Now it is very much a University city, not that Otago University is any larger than others but the percentage of population that is associated with the University makes it central to things.
The Southern Cross Scenic Circle Hotel is centrally located ...

... not every square km of NZ is stunning - a reality check! We take a walk to the centre then across to the University area - some lovely old buildings house various faculties. We notice a sign advertising uni facilities including "queer support". Strange how the use of language can be so different in a seemingly similar country to the UK! We browse in the Uni bookshop and find a Spanish dictionary and phrase book - more exciting than it sounds. We ...

... the previous one had been made of wood). Chris and I left them with the boat in the water and walked up the track to the High Road and the site of the new house that Hugh and Karen are having built and we admired the tree-house, stage one of the build. When we walked back 'Mist' was still in the water as Hugh and Steve had problems with the winch for the centre-board. Chris was left with the tricky job of reversing Mist back into Hugh's drive! In the evening ...

... filling shopping we set off out of Dunedin in glorious sunshine and cycled down the coast past spectacular beach after spectacular beach. The campsite was not a shinny modern affair, there was no light in the shower etc, but we did meet some nice folks from a camper van who lent us a tin opener, which bizarrely required adjusting with a pair of pliers before use.

... down the main street to see if we could find a bookshop because Alan wanted to buy a book on Maori culture, so we spent some time browsing before heading off for the Cadbury factory tour.   It was raining by this time, and we ran into our butler, Alex, while waiting for some lights. He had three hours off to get into town and do some shopping. The Cadbury tour was good (about an hour or so). You have a look around a little museum type ...

... town we drove out along Memorial Drive. There are trees along both sides of the road and each one has a cross to a lost soldier. There were quite a few for such a small town. We continued down the coast till we reached the site of the Moeraki Boulders. This are huge round boulders which have been formed due to chemical reaction in the rocks. Or as the Maori legend has it they are the food baskets lost overboard when ...

... buses start running. But the apartment is great! It's really modern, we have heated floors in the bathroom (not that we use them - what a waste of energy!), we have a balcony with a great view of the city and the sea , and our flatmates are awesome. The hardest part about moving here was finding a job! It took about two weeks and handing out over 50 resumes to find something. And even what we found isn't that great. I'm ...

We left Chirstchurch in glorious sunshine but with a frost in the air - just like in England in the winter. The main road south out of the city took us parallel to a range of mountains, the Southern Alps, which had had a good covering of snow overnight. With unmelted snow and ice on roads hidden from the sun we took it slowly and headed along the coast. As we started to make our way inland we kept turning corners to be confronted by a different ...