Day 67 - To Dunedin (Fri 14th Jan)

This morning was a reasonably early start, we left Chris and the family at around 09:00. We managed to say goodbye to Giles on his way to work and said our farewells to Chris. They gave us a fantastic week, was great to catch up with them all too. So after having some quick breakfast, we had packed our bags and left, Chaggie were back on the road.

Chino was nominated to drive this mornings route to Oamaru. It was a long and tiring drive, we hadn't been used to getting up at 08:00 for the last week. We got to Oamaru at 12:30ish and looked out for somewhere good to eat, along the high street most of the buildings have been noticeably built with Oamaru stone, a big, chunky sand coloured stone. Before lunch though our first intentions when arriving to Oamaru was to find Graeme Stagg's first house on Tay Street, it took a few steep hills to get there. We don't know whether its changed much over the years but it looked to be a nice property looking out on some very nice views of Oamaru and the coast. It's also currently looking to be sold, any takers? Our next building to find was Oamaru Hospital, for Staggie to take a quick photo of where his Dad was born.

Once our quick bit of historical sight seeing was done, we had lunch on the high street and walked along the coast. We got back to our car and drove to Oamaru Gardens. Not only was it a good place to eat but Phill also found the statue his Aunty Eleanor once ran away to when she was little. The Peter Pan statue.

After lunch we checked out some of the Penguin Colonies Oamaru have, we drove to two sites where they are known to live. Unfortunately on both occasions we were unlucky to spot any, they must have been out. So we continued our journey to Dunedin, still though with a couple of stop off's previously arranged. On the way down the coast we stopped off at Moeraki, to check out the famous 'Moeraki Boulders'. Huge spherical stones originally formed some 60 million years ago. Up to three metres and weighing several tonnes, we got a picture on top of them.

Next in line was to visit Shag Point. Yes, we just wanted to get a picture of the signpost. With a lot of driving that had been done to get here though, we made a stop and checked out the Seal Colony they have, this time we were fortunate to see the colony. Chaggie were the only ones there and got pretty damn close to one of them without realising, Chino was checking out one about 10 metres away where all of a sudden he realised there was one just a metre away from him asleep. We thought it was then best to head off.

We got to Dunedin this evening at around 17:00 and arrived at one of Staggie's second cousins house. She arrived too just minutes after we got there, it was the first time Phill had met her. She was very friendly and told us to make ourselves at home. We unpacked and chose our rooms, lucky to get our own room each. Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand. The Dunedin urban area lies on the central-eastern coast of Otago, surrounding the Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills around Dunedin are very picturesque, in some ways Chaggie did feel back at home with the town and buildings looking quite British. Chaggie were impressed with how close everything is, we're staying in South Dunedin and are only a few minutes from town and the harbour. We went out this evening with Helen and met her partner Matt and work colleagues out in town. We visited quite a few bars, the weather was hot and it was pretty busy. We headed back to Helen and Matt's place after popping into a supermarket to get some more beer. A little later on for something to eat, Helen made us some nachos which were hugely appreciated. Later on this evening friends of Helen and Matt's came to stay, a former room-mate with his girlfriend. We all headed up to a nearby pub by the beach and had another beer.

It wasn't too late a night but we were all pretty drunk so we headed back to watch England play 20-20 against Australia on TV.

Chaggie x