Day 169 - Dunedin, New Zealand

Day 169 – 24th November 2005 +13:00 GMT Total Miles 29652

Spend the morning wandering around the city centre, had a look at a couple of Cathedrals and a statue of Rabbie Burns.


Cathedral 1


Cathedral 2


Rabbie Burns


Dunedin Railway Station


Dunedin


Pilkington Street

Dunedin is a city with a lot of Scottish heritage, so many of the streets and areas have Scottish names. We looked around a couple of second hand book stores but bought nothing, we found a mall and all ate then walked back to the hostel and picked up the car. We drove around the city stopping at several view points then drove to Baldwin Street which is the steepest street in the world. We parked at the bottom then I ran to the top, every year they have a race to the two and back. Once you make it to the top you can collect a free certificate from the shop.


View up Baldwin Street


View Down Baldwin Street


View Down Baldwin Street


Baldwin Street


Me on Baldwin Street


Baldwin Street


Reece, Ibon, Simon and Jill at top of Baldwin Street

We then drove to the scenic lookout at the top of Signal Hill here we stopped and took some photos over the city.


View of Dunedin


View of Dunedin

We then drove back through the botanical gardens and on to the hostel. I played a couple of games of chess with Ibon, who is an amazing chess player, then I went to the cinema to see Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, which was brilliant. Film ended just after midnight and I went to bed.

Day 168 - Te Anua - Dunedin, New Zealand

Day 168 – 23rd November 2005 +13:00 GMT Total Miles 29652

Checked out of the hostel and packed up the car, it’s not easy fitting in 4 large rucksacks, 4 small rucksacks and 8 bags of shopping, plus whatever other bits and pieces we have bought.


View from Wooden Cabin


View from Wooden Cabin


Our Wooden Cabin

Ibon wants to come to Dunedin with us so we all squeeze in the car and today Reece drives. We stop for petrol on route and carry on along the Highway 6 then highway 1 until we reach Balclutha, we stop here and find a small coffee shop that does great food and we eat then spend a while in a book store, as Jill has to catch up on all the gossip in the girly mags, apparently Jack Osbourne and Meg Ryan are now a couple…We then carry on until we reach Dunedin, we find our hostel called Hogwartz (appropriate name considering Harry Potter comes out tomorrow) it is a huge Mansion and the rooms are massive. I decide to take a nap as I have had little sleep over the last few days and have a splitting headache and the others go to take a look around town. I wake up at 8pm when they come back and Ibon insists on cooking for us all, he makes a Spanish omelet which takes him two hours to cook. We eat and then Ibon and I play chess, he is brilliant at chess and rather than just beat me straight away he gives me a few lessons which always help. We then all go to bed.

Day 167 - Milford Sound - Te Anua, New Zealand

Day 167 – 22nd November 2005 +13:00 GMT Total Miles 29391

Up at 7am as the boat is sailing again towards the Tasman sea, we go upstairs for breakfast and we have a huge Buffet with sausage, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, hash browns, toast, etc etc. So we eat well and then go on deck as it is a lovely morning and the sun is shining and the sea is a lovely deep blue.


Me with my morning tea


Me, Jill, Reece and Ibon


Milford Sound

By 8am we reach the Tasman sea and it is a lot more bumpy, the boat rocks up and down a lot more. We sail out for a short while and then turn around and head back through the Fiord.


Milford Sound


Milford Sound

They stop by a cliff face and tell everyone to put their back against the railings of the boat and look up at the cliff, then they tell us it is just under a 1km high, you just can’t get any perspective on the height. Several planes fly along the Fiord and they are minute compared to the cliffs.


Milford Sound


Milford Sound


Milford Sound


Milford Sound

We stop at the Marine Observatory on the way back to the dock to allow a few people to get off and then carry on and dock around 9:30am. Ibon the Spanish guy decides to come with us to Te Anua so we give him a lift. We then drive out of Milford Sound and towards Te Anau stopping at several viewpoints along the route.


View on route to Te Anua


View on route to Te Anua



The Homer Tunnel


View on route to Te Anua

When we arrive in Te Anau we find our hostel which is about 9 km south and is called Barnyard Backpackers. We are given a wooden cabin with en-suite bathroom and views that give a panoramic view of the mountains. There is a gorgeous Labrador dog curled up asleep with a tiny baby lamb next to it and as I walk towards the main house this pig starts charging across the field towards me and then stops at my ankles and sniffs me, I stroke him and find he loves his belly being tickles, later on he runs up to Jill and starts licking her toes.


A Very out of focus picture of a pig

We drive back in to Te Anua after dumping all our bags in the hostel and look around, it is a very small town so we just visit the pub for a pint of Guinness and some food, the burgers are great and the Guinness is the best I have had so far in New Zealand. After we have eaten we drive back to the hostel and Ibon and I play pool for a bit as they have a free pool table, after I have won 6 games in a row we stop and get chatting to a German girl called Michaela. We decide to have a few beers so all five of us go back to my room and we spend a few hours chatting before we call it a night.

Day 166 - Milford Sound, New Zealand

Day 166 – 21st November 2005 +13:00 GMT Total Miles 29307

Had to be out of our room by 10am so we handed back the key and loaded up the car, we then took a drive into Milford Sound and had a short walk along the lake and read that the homer tunnel was started in 1931 with pick axes and it only got to its present state in 1991.


View from Milford Sound


View from Milford Sound

The weather was a lot better this morning so we drove back towards the homer tunnel stopping off at view points to take photo’s. We stopped at a 300m chasm which we walked around and took some photo’s.


A Kea in the Car Park


A Kea


A Kea

The Fiord is much more impressive just after it has stopped raining as thousands of waterfalls appear along the cliff faces.


Milford Sound

We then went back to the lodge and sat in the lounge for 3 hours reading before making our way to the Milford Café for some food. The food was extortionate but it is the only place to eat for 180km. We meet up with Ibon our Spanish friend who’s backpack we had transported from Queenstown and then checked in at the ferry terminal. We had booked ourselves on an overnight boat trip around the Fiord, we choose a small boat that only carried 12 overnight as we did not want to be with huge crowds of people. The boat set sail at 4:30pm and we spent a couple of hours sailing around the Fiords be amazed at the cliff faces which some are over 1000 metres high.


Me on the Boat


A 158m Waterfall


Milford Sound Fiord

There were several waterfalls which are over 50 storeys high yet look as if they are just a few metres.


Waterfalls


Waterfalls



Milford Sound Fiord


Milford Sound Fiord


Milford Sound Fiord (see the boat in the very centre at the bottom for a perspective on size)


Milford Sound Fiord


Milford Sound Fiord

We saw several seals and a snow crest penguin in the Fiord.The Snow Crest Penguin is the rarest penguin in the world with less than 2000 remaining.


Snow Crest Penguin


Snow Crest Penguin


Fur Seals


Fur Seals

We sailed out into the Tasman sea for a bit then started to sail back. Now whilst we had been sailing the captain had been running around like crazy and it turned out the generator had failed, so the captain gave us a choice we can either stay on the little boat but they can’t heat any of the food, we keep losing the lighting and we can’t have hot drinks and can’t flush the toilets. The other option was to move to a different boat which happened to be the first class boat, where we each get a private cabin with en-suite bathrooms, we get a 4 course dinner and a few activities, now we paid $160 for our trip and the other boat was around $500. Everyone on our boat decided to leave so the captain gave us 3 bottles of wine to apologise and called the other boat who sent out a tender craft to pick us up.


The Mariner the 1st Class Boat


The Friendship

We got aboard the boat and were each dished out our keys for our cabins. We then had hors d’oeuvres in the front lounge followed by dinner, we first had two choices of soup then we had a carvery followed by a table full of desserts and then cheese and tea and coffee. Since we had missed our chance earlier to go Kayaking they agreed to take us out straight after lunch so 7 of us went out kayaking around the bay where we were anchored and we saw a few penguins on the shore.


Us Kayaking


Me Kayaking

We were out for about 40 minutes and when we returned they started a star gazing talk, so they pointed out all the stars and planets that were in the night sky.


A Photo of the Planet Venus over the Mountains

We then sat around and chatted for a while and had a few drinks before going to sleep in our cabins.