Stafford Gables YHA Dunedin

Hi everyone
I'm in Dunedin for a night, got the plane yesterday the flight was amazing just staring out of the window is a tourist attraction, something you come to appreciate very early on in New Zealand. The airport at Dunedin is 30km outside of the city and it cost me $30 to get to the city centre which is about 15 pounds (I can't be bothered to find the pound sign (@ is shift 2, # is shift 3)). Met a nice Irish guy in my dorm who was travelling around in a car by himeself. I am debatin...

I slept quite well on the boat but we were woken early for breakfast - again the food was fantastic, cooked and continental, and again we were interrupted by dolphins. We were taken out into the Tasman sea, which eventually takes you to Oz then sailed back into the Sounds and saw a huge waterfall and a lonely penguin hopping around on the rocks. Nigel then decided he would drive to Dunedin and not back to Queenstown which was great as I'd though about going there anyway so we could share petr...

As we drove down the steep and winding road into Dunedin, I felt sure that the scenery around us was pretty impressive, unfortunately the weather was so bad that we could barely see a few yards in front of us, as the rain lashed onto the windscreen. We had indeed arrived at New Zealand's 'Scottish City'. Dunedin is actually the Maori word for Edinburgh. Upon checking into Stafford Gables YHA we were informed that we would be sleeping in the 'Jean Nelson' room - named after the 'entity' which ...

Well, I am happy to say the days since we have left Ashburton have been a considerable improvement on those few days. We were happy to leave the town behind to board the bus to Queenstown. We saw some amazing scenery on the way- lots of mountains and incredibly blue lakes. I also had possibly the best iced coffee EVER at our lunch stop. (Those sorts of things make me happy!) It was just after 3pm by the time we had dragged all our luggage to the Lakefront YHA- about a 15-20 minute walk but it...

Dunedin, home of albatrosses, yellow-eyed penguins and the World's steepest street. And also the Cadbury Factory...

After Queenstown we headed on down to Te Anau, doorway to the massive area of Fiordland. This area is all National park and totals almost a quarter of the South island. Te Anau is used by most travellers as a stopover to visit Milford Sound but also boasts the second largest lake in New Zealand. On the map it didn't look so far to drive but that's always the case here, as the crow flies it's a relatively short journey from Queenstown over the mountains but we had to go around. After staying t...

I caught the early bus outa dodge (aka, Queenstown) this morning. It was freezing. It was so cold, in fact, that there was frost on the ground in places on our way to Dunedin. The vineyards were employing helicopters to blow hot air down on the vines, so they wouldn't freeze. I arrived in Dunedin early enough that I could have a shower, do laundry, and still hit the town. The hostel I'm staying in is a YHA hostel a 15 minute trek from the "octagon", the centre of town. The hostel is an old ho...

The scottish capital of New Zealand is a fairly pleasant town. There is some nice architecture and a pretty train station to look at, some museums, shops and the steepest street in the world. To us it is still fairly small and barely qualifies as a city, but it seems that's what the Kiwi's call it. A thriving metropolis it is not, but good for a stop over, though we had booked four days here, can't remember why. One day was filled with waitangi celebrations. apparently a hundred or so years a...

Rose: We're off this afternoon with The Elm Wildlife Tour - brilliant experience!!!!Our guide Clement is French and lurches from a think French accent into an Irish lilt which can be so disorientating that you find yourself looking around for another person. Anyway he's good and knows his stuff. The scenery here is again different - green undulating hills where sheep and cattle graze. We are surprised to hear that NZ has so many introduced species - like grass from Wales and Canadian Pines. F...