Elgin House Dunedin

... us a ride in their car! We took them up on their offer. They had lived in Dunedin all their life and said they will die there too. Couldn’t have caught a ride with a nicer couple.

We also visited Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world! It took us 5 minutes to walk up the hill but it was harder walking down.

We took a delicious tour of Cadbury’ ...

... at the local YHA and shared a room with something of a character. Again. The man in question dresses constantly in a seventies tracksuit and has the hair and face of either Michael Crawford circa 1977 or Rod Hull from around the same period. The voice and accent is definitely Crawford. It's really quite spooky. He also wears a small backpack. All the time. Like the sort of thing you'd take your sandwiches to work in. The first time I met him was when I dropped my ...

... of roads that just beg you to break the 100kph speed limit with open plains on both side leaving no where for cops to hide, rest assured the only other car coming the other way for about 30 minutes just happened to be the only cop we seen on the whole South Island.
Most of this section of highway afford great views of snow capped Alps.
There a three or four mid sized towns along SH1, all similar and none screaming out stop here and ...

... dinosaur eggs and for his grand finale whipped out the liquid nitrogen to freeze an easter egg and some marshmellows (which we all got to try - it's a bizarre sensation to eat a mashmellow that has been frozen to over -176 degrees!). Kids thought that was pretty cool! We had time to explore a bit more of the museum, which was very interesting and well laid out.

... Odyssey', a small passenger ship which Hugh was to pilot out. The Captain of the ship had been a trainee with Hugh on Hugh's first trip as Captain on Sir Winston Churchill. We spent a pleasant couple of hours on the bridge of the Clipper Odyssey as we followed the channel though Otago Harbour, to the sea. The light drizzle did not mar the trip. From the sea we caught the pilot boat to Port Chalmers and went to the local bar overlooking the port for pie and a ...

... and very poor visibility, so we decided to continue our trip towards the Catlins, in the South of the island. PT: O nosso primeiro dia na região de Otago foi o Dia das Formações Rochosas. :-) Seguimos em direcção à costa pelo Vale de Waitaki, mas em Duntroon fizémos um desvio para visitarmos as Elephant Rocks (Rochas Elefante), um conjunto de rochedos esculpidos pela erosão (não tinhamos dito que foi dia das formações rochosas?), no meio dum campo, e que produzem uma ...

... place for them. The wharf area isn't particularly attractive, and certainly not one of those renewed wharf areas common in many cities. The Railway Station is an unusual building for a station, and well worth a look.   We headed back to the town to find a bank to get some NZ dollars, and then had lunch at a pub called The Terrace - real mince burgers instead of processed patties was a good start, and the servings weren't too huge. Then we ...

... Wheeler bike leant against the wall. It was part of the NZ national high wheeler championship!!!!! The only problem was that the race didn't start for 30 minutes and we had to be back on the coach soon. This was the first time it had proved a nuisance not having my own transport. This is also the town where the Blue Penguin sanctuary is located but I didn't have time to go and see it mores the pity!!! As we left ...

... here so there are tons of people our age and things to do, and it's close to the beach (and a pretty good surfing one at that), and overall it's just got a good vibe. Now we're sharing an apartment with a few other people in a suburb called Northeast Valley. It's really close to the university but unfortunately for me (you'll find out why in a minute), it's a little bit far out of town if you need to get somewhere ...

... i spend a lot of my time. i'm currently employed at the wine cellars bar, in the basement of the building the hostel's in, but it's been very slow and i haven't been working very much. though i am working at the hostel (cleaning the kitchen, making beds, etc.) in exchange for free room, i'm still looking for another job to fill all this free time i have. say a prayer for me that i can find one relatively soon! hope all is well. miss everyone, and WELCOME TO THE FAMILY KATHERINE!