Dunedin And The Otago Peninsula

So Cute

We missed our bus from Queenstown to Dunedin - well almost. The night before we had little sleep because an Irish couple were keeping us up having a domestic (fight) at 2am. When we awoke, we reached the pick-up point with a few minutes to spare but the bus had already gone. We quickly rushed to the office so they could phone the bus driver. We then had to catch a taxi to chase the bus. Eventually we caught up with it and we were on our way. Five hours later we reached Dunedin on the South Island's east coast.

Dunedin is a fairly large town (for New Zealand) and the place had a feel to it which reminded me of Nelson. Victorian public buildings are dotted between modern structures, while wooden villas scatter the surrounding hillside suburbs. The town is very university orientated and students are often the only group of people you see out here. We only spent a couple of days here, checking out the town, it's oldish style buildings and recovering from our days in Queenstown.

Dunedin is a popular spot because it sits by the Otago Peninsula, an important ecological location because it is home to some rare and incredible wildlife, all of which is easily accessible. Darren and I took a day trip out on the Peninsula to see some of these creatures. On our trip we saw Fur Seals, Sealions and the rarest (of the 18 species of) penguin in the world - the Yellow Eyed Penguin which I believe can only be found in NZ. We also tryed to spot the Royal Albatross but they were just not coming out to play that day - aparently it wasn't windy enough for them. It was however rainy enough - we got completely soaked , including my camera which decided to stop working for three days after. The trip was well worth it though, just to see some animals which I will probably never see again.

After two days we left Dunedin and headed back up north, to the South Island's largest city - Christchurch......