Dunedin

12/01/12-14/01/12

Time to start heading down south as I boarded my bus to Dunedin that morning. Following the coast down we picked and dropped off passengers before we had a stop off at Oamaru, a former gold rush town which has several heritage buildings along its high street. Arriving in Dunedin that afternoon I discovered one of the passengers on my bus was heading to the same hostel as me, it turned out he would be my companion for my stay. After arriving we went for a quick walk around the town to get our bearings and picked up some supplies.

Our first full day saw rain hanging over the city for most of the day so we decided to check out several of the local museums and art galleries so we could stay dry. We first went to the Otago museum which is the main local one before checking out the local art gallery in the centre of town. With a brief pause in the rain that afternoon we went and visited the railway station which is reputed to be the most photographed building in New Zealand before walking down to the quayside grab a quick drink.

The next day we jumped on the bus to visit the Otago peninsula which is habitat to several different species of wildlife, without a car and limited bus we were to do a lot of walking that day. The main thing we had come to see was the massive albatrosses which nest on the cliff face of the peninsula. Unfortunately due to the lack of wind we only managed to see several of the birds in flight from afar, with their giant 3m wing span. Down by the sea we did get to see groups of seals sheltering on the rocks and on the walk back to catch a bus we also found a dead shark which had washed up on shore.