Carisbrook Motel Dunedin

... more sober world of international travel and specifically New Zealand. My Polish friend Martin, his lady-friend Sarah and I continued our trek around the South Island by visiting Te Anau. Doesn't that sound like the place Tim Robbins wanted to get to in The Shawshank Redemption? Yes it does. Anyway Te Anau is not only difficult to spell and pronounce it is also very quiet and stunningly beautiful. Much like mygoodself. Whilst there Martin and Sarah stayed in his car in a ...

... It's not until about 11:30pm that any one else comes into the bar and then it fills with students quickly, by 1:30am you realize where the Otago fascination with animals, this is mid week mind you, god knows what happens on the weekend.
On Thursday we drove around the inner harbour to Larnach and Cargills Castles, then out to the headlands at Taiaroa Heads, we were all sealed out so the seals didn't attract us that but the Albatross ...

... with lots of potential somewhat ruined by the random choice of decor - walls painted with left over colours that sit together uneasilly. Our room is an akward shape and we work out that it used to be part of the coridoor. Joel's bed is half in an old ripped out wardrobe. Add to that that we are in the ropey end of town. Every cloud has a silver lining - the staff are nice and it's only about 10 mins walk to the nicer parts. It's good for us to see ...

... 20 people was using the same area as an overnight stop but none of the competitors arrived until about 1am from their all day cycle and then departed again at dawn for a 15km swim down the river which was full of grade 2 rapids. Yesterday we went kayaking in Doubtful Sound rather than join the 3-6000 tourists that go to Milford Sound every day and swapped the 5hr drive for a one hour boat ride across Lake Manapouri. After the boat ride we had a short bus ...

... colony, at Pilots Beach, there is a blue penguin colony, but they only come home at sunset (around 9pm), we were hungry so we went back to Portobello and had dinner and drinks at our local pub. The next day we still had time to do a long walk to and around Victory Beach, where we saw more sea lions and penguin tracks (but no actual penguins), we still wanted to do some more sightseeing in the peninsula and in Dunedin, but meantime the weather turned really nasty with ...

... compared to the service on ship, are often miles apart, with some people being very perfunctory about their jobs, without even a smile. That said, it's a well organised tour.   We headed back to the ship then, and managed to get standing room on the shuttle that was waiting to leave. As we started off, one of the Celebrity crew stood up and gave me his seat - beyond the call of duty I think. Back on the boat, we had some afternoon tea ...

... were supposed to be, etc. we arrived out on the peninsula and transferred to a boat to view some Northern Royal Albatross as they courted and prepared for a bit of hows-yer-father. The albatross, though not the biggest of the breed is still pretty enormous, wingspan of 3.3m weighing upto 8 kg. We saw 3 or 4 in the air and several on the clifftop. Very impressive. Also saw some little blue penguins around the ...

... in... we decided to fix chili for dinner. We needed some tomato sauce. Here, tomato sauce is ketchup. So we had ketchup chili for dinner. Yuck! Then we did some laundry... something bled, and we now have multiple shades of purple articles of clothing. And the rain kept coming. All we wanted to do was get out of here! So we decided to play some cards... and drank lots of wine, while listening to the one and only country music stations in NZ, which was pretty cool.

... and the seas fairly calm so it isn't that spectacular but the sound is still pretty cool. We walk back to the warmth of the car and then drive back to Owaka in search of cash only to realise that the nearest cash point is a long drive back to a town at the edge of the Catlins. After racing to Blaclutha and then back to Owaka we drive to Cathedral caves where we poer walk down to the beach and see the huge cathedral sized caves and after walking through them we head back up to ...

... told the Russians that they were expected to invade, and they never turned up. The Royal Navy did some trials in New Zealand and discovered that the chances of a warship hitting a small shore installation were virtually nil. Soon after, it became apparent that although the guns were effective against ships, they were vulnerable to air strikes. More powerful, long range guns were coming into service, but the disappearing carriages were not capable of an elevation of ...