Scenic Circle Dunedin City Ht

... beach and there was a wind noticeable enough to arouse the thought of and subsequently cause the purchase of a kite. It was with my kite that I returned to the beach two weeks later. I guess for me there is a kind of nostalgia associated with a kite. Not that kite flying was the main and greatest event of my childhood, but I think that each time that I have flown a kite, I have enjoyed it (the flying) and the rest of the things partnered with it ...

... on the beach). About 10 minutes down the sandy beach there are a collection of huge perfectly spherical boulders plonked along the water line - so we had a good climb on those. There was no sign of where they came from - early speculation was of volcanic laval ball bearings or ginormous malteasers. We then headed back into Barney and set off towards the Otago Peninsular (to the East of Dunedin city). We arrived shortly before ...

... matin car la journee est maussade. J'y rencontre deux jeunes Quebecoises qui vont visiter la Brasserie Speights en fin d'apres-midi et elles m'invitent. La biere Speight's est la biere la plus vendue en NZ et est appelee "Pride of the South". Visite interessante qui se termine par une degustation.... On nous laisse meme le controle de la distributrice! Vous pensez que le Quebec c'est un grand village, attendez celle-la. Dans la ...

... 350 inhabitants live) to a cacophony of bird song. We started trekking the next day - got a boat to Freshwater Creek (boats are the only way to get around the island as there aren't any roads) and then trekked through forest and over flat & sandy marshland to Mason's Bay - a really remote long beach, wild and windswept. Apparently it's the place in NZ to see Kiwi wild but we weren't so lucky. We stayed in the trampers hut there ...

... practically shaking her. This was a service he didn't provide to the Israeli girl in Raglan, who then missed the next bus for the same reason. Finally, at 7:55am, a van rocked up, and Amy got out. She had made it... just. The ferry ride was slightly bumpy, but it was only an hour long and we arrived safely back at Bluff and headed to Invercargill to pick up those who hadn't come to the island with us. On the way to ...

... that is where I decided to head instead. Due to fairly late night involving nothing more interesting than wine and facebookery, I was pretty tired. After nearly falling asleep at the wheel, I realised this would not do, and pulled into a petrol station to both fill up Demi and load myself up with sugary snacks, in a desperate attempt to tempt my body into some sort of sugar high, thus enabling me to stay awake. When I had switched my trusty satnav back on, I ...

... all those things that don't exist in Queenstown, and we'd kind of forgotten about! We stayed in a hostel in the city for the two nights..the best that can be said about it was that it was cheap. Actually, that's unfair, it was clean (ish) too :-) It was one of those hostels that feels more like a home for displaced odd people than backpackers, but was fairly quiet, at least until we arrived! Despite good intentions of "taking it easy" on Friday night as we had ...

... to see a lot of animals in Otago Peninsula. Albatross (only the chicks waiting for food), fur seals having fun on the rocks, sea lions having a siesta on the beach and the famous yellow eyed pinguings, going back home after a day fishing in the sea. We were lucky to see them cause they're are quite shy and unsocial... so funny! Once we saw the animals, we took the campervan and went again to the road (with new music because I bought to my father a Billy Joel's compilation).

... for their babies.  There were 11 mating adult pairs, so 22 adults.  They go out to sea for 3 or 4 days to catch food, and then fly back to feed their babies.  The only chance to see them is when they fly in or out, so it's a pretty small chance of seeing anything in the winter.  And we didn't see anything.  They have a nice set of exhibits at the Royal Albatross Center, though. After that we drove to a beach to see the yellow-eyed penguins and sea lions.  Elm Wildlife Tours ...

... on the rather uncomfortable looking rocks though. Next we headed to where we would see some of the endangered yellow eyed penguins. We had booked onto a tour so should be able to see a few. There are only about 4,000 left in the world with half that population inhabiting this part of New Zealand. Our tour began watching a video of these penguins and being told that we might not see any of these penguins as they are very ...