Dunedin

Dunedin is described by our Rough Guide a ‘the Edinburgh of New Zealand’. The name is even meant to e derived from a Gaelic version of Edinburgh apparently. So we weren’t exactly surprised that we arrived to bleak skies, howling winds and drizzle. Very Scottish!

Dunedin is a pretty little place though – nestled in the hills off the coast of the south-eastern South Island, near the Otago Peninsular. It’s a lot smaller than the original Edinburgh, but just as wet, and with some comparable hills and mountains around. Bleak, gorse-strewn and windswept, with the odd rain-soaked shivering sheep wandering by! Perhaps that’s a bit unfair – for most of our stay it was actually quite sunny (if a bit chilly) – but as we first arrived we drove over the hills from a beautiful afternoon on the east coast, to descend into Dunedin and drizzle. And then pulled up by our hotel just by the Cadbury’s factory whose hauntingly nice smells gave us chocolate cravings!

The journey from Christchurch down to Dunedin wasn’t quite as scenic as that from Picton, but it wasn’t bad. Most of the first half of the journey was through the planes south of Christchurch, pleasant enough - large, lush, very flat cattle pastures and glimpses of the distant Southern Alps - but a bit dull after an hour or so of driving. Fortunately the road then returned to the coast making the trip much more interesting… and much longer since we kept on stopping to have a look! Harbours with turquoise water, sandy coves, sweeping beaches with mysteriously round honeycombed boulders… and more wildlife of course! We drove off down a 5 km gravel track to an old wooden lighthouse so we could watch a yellow eyed penguin catch fish off a tiny isolated beach (while much lazier seals basked on the sand nearby). Penguins waddle so clumsily on land – but swim beautifully smoothly.

We found that Dunedin is actually a very good place to stay to see even more creatures since it is immediately adjacent to the Otago Peninsular. We spent quite a bit of time driving around this place than we originally intended - well its very pretty, and has loads of weird animals! Albatrosses for instance. The headland of the peninsular is the breeding ground for Royal Albatrosses – imagine something a bit like a seagull but with a 3 m wingspan! We weren’t too impressed with the idea of them before we saw one, but then we stayed around for ages in the freezing wind spotting more. They are absolutely huge – wings like gliders. And they never seem to flap, they just hang in the air somehow.

Just next to the albatross headland was the home of another set of birds – this time little ones. Blue eyed penguins nest there. They are only 20 cm tall, spend all their days fishing to come home in fleets at dusk. We saw about 50 of them come onto the beach and then hurry up some steps from the sand to their burrows. They were possibly as sweet as those koalas we saw back in Australia! There are less sweet inhabitants of the peninsular however. While waiting for the penguins to return home from their hard day fishing we took a stroll along a nearby beach and almost bumped into a sleeping sea lion. It was tucked up at the edge of the dunes and had almost covered itself with sand. We had taken it for a rock and only realised our mistake when we were a few meters away – this wasn’t meant to be a beach where seals or sea lions were common! And sea lions are actually very big, grumpy and aggressive, so you are never meant to get within 5 m of one - or between it and the sea. Which is exactly where we were when we saw it! It seemed to be snoozing happily however, so we walked swiftly past, and then climbed onto the top of the steep sand dunes behind it to walk back along the beach to where our car was parked. Much safer and more sensible yes? Well, we thought so. But the very rough track along the dunes gave us an excellent view of the sea lion at a safe distance, so we couldn’t resist a few photographs. At which time the monster woke up, decided he didn’t like us and barked very fiercely. Showing lots of big white teeth! We got the hint and dived away into the shrubbery on top of the dunes. Not the best route! A quarter of an hour of scrambling through tough grass and spiky shrubs brought us to the side of someone’s back garden… where a local dog took offence and we got barked at again. And we were only trying to have a nice stroll on the beach! Leave us alone!

Ah well, next we go to Te Anau, a lakeside town close to the Fiords of South Western New Zealand. Apparently this is the gateway to some of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Which based on what we’ve seen so far should be pretty impressive!