It has been very kindly pointed out to me on several occasions that we never did quite finish the blog - I will hold my hand up and say that this is entirely my fault, my creative ability being slightly drained by actually having to work since returning to London, but equally compounded by a general breakdown in access to technology, due to a lack of a laptop and often an internet connection... so whilst this blog may seem to be published by MZ, she is in charge of the pictures and I am finally finishing our epic NZ story...
MZ detailed the mammoth drive that half our party undertook down to the Bousie hometown of Dunedin in the last blog - whilst that was all going on I was accompanying the Bousie siblings as we did a non stop 10 hour drive directly there, stopping only for the odd service station pie, phone calls from John and Cherie informing us of not one, but two burst tyres on the very overladen trailer carrying the boat (it was eventually abandoned about an hour from Dunedin and collected the next day), and to collect one very large, over-excited and slightly smelly dog in the form of Salem. All this fun was carried out to the accompaniment of 'the CD' (thanks Ben, good whilst it was there are only so many times even I can listen to the same songs) and Eden literally managing to spend the whole journey reading his way through a very thick book, and then sleep the rest of the time! It was great to finally arrive though at the Bousie homestead, break the news to Eden and Reuben that we would be taking their beds from them and have a decent shower for the first time in about 10 days!
Dunedin is a city famous not only for being the birthplace of the Bousies, having a massive university and being a shipping port but also for being the home of SPEIGHTS - the Pride of the South! To be honest, I'd never even heard of Speights until I came to NZ but apparently it really is quite well known and is brewed in Dunedin. Natalie was obsessed with getting a Speight's shirt and we heard that at the end of the tour you taste the beers, so we thought we would pay a little visit and educate ourselves!
Managing to avoid falling into a vat of hops, and comforting Jess and Jess after they welled up with the blatant 'Southern man' propaganda videos that we were shown, we got to the most interesting part of the tour, where you got to pour your own beer and taste a variety.... I was able to fulfil my desire to be a barmaid (I was rubbish) and Colin, David and Nat seemed to have a competition as to just how many small glasses it was possible to drink in 30 minutes - I think David won with 8!!
We convinced the very old guys in the gift shop to give us discounts (I think the average age of the workers there was about 75) and had our picture by the famous water tap outside... it was a great introduction to Dunedin!
By the time the tour was over and the rest of the gang had arrived we had all decided that enjoyable as it had been, we were actually a bit over the whole camping lark, and that perhaps the best way to enjoy our visit to the Catlins would just be to make it a day trip, especially as the temperature in Dunedin might have been sunny but was significantly colder than further north. Picking the most scenic places to visit was hard, but we feel that we got in a few of the major highlights...
Cathedral Caves - not as beautiful as Cathedral Cove in the Coromandal, perhaps because at the beginning of the day it was quite overcast, but still an amazing phenomena - and joined by another amazing phenomena - a human pyramid!! You can only visit the caves at low tide, and we were struck by the pointlessness of being asked to pay to see something natural and people who only accept cash in a place where the nearest cashpoint is a good hours drive away! Amazingly we managed to do a deal and got a couple of us through for free!
MZ also discovered the dangers of trying to rock climb and keep an eye on where everyone else was, when she bashed her head risking life and limb!
The Petrified Forest - to be honest, not actually scary or even much of a forest fossilised to see, but if you are into whatever the term for natural archeology is - this would be quite amazing. Its basically very very very old wood from the Jurassic period! More entertaining was the man collecting paua (and again, no one got me a shell...) with the most enormous hands, the excessive amounts of sea weed, and a very concerning discussion about exactly what Natalie thought sea sperm was.....
Being 'petrified' in the petrified forest!
Slope Point - our road trip would not have been complete without a visit to the most southern point in NZ (well on the main islands anyway) especially after we had made it Cape Reinga in the North. Normally an incredibly windy place, as can be seen by the state of the trees, it was actually very calm, and gave us plenty of opportunities for some interesting pictures... sadly no light house to pose by though...
Imagining what it is normally like in the wind!
By this point of the day the sun was coming out and our flagging energies were uplifted by blue skies and sunshine so that we could see the Purakaunui Falls, which were really very beautiful and inspired Colin to ignore all common sense and go the wrong sides of the barriers for photo ops...
Finally we finished our trip at Nugget Point, site of one of New Zealand's oldest lighthouses built in 1869. whilst trying not to wax lyrical about a place the view was breathtaking - I'm not sure I've ever seen water that blue and clear, and with the afternoon sun it just looked spectacular. We saw groups of seals playing in the sea below and it allowed us to appreciate yet again what a beautiful place NZ is...
The Nuggets...
Sustained by amazing meals and overall hospitality from the Bousies our final few sight seeing moments in Dunedin involved a review of Jessie's highlights, including St Clair's beach, the peninsula with its amazing albatross, and Baldwin Street - the steepest street in the world! It was actually quite scary looking down it, and definitely not a road I would want to have to work on the ministry!
You'll have to take our word for it that there were albatross around!
Hospitality Bousie Style! (Nice face Reuben!)
Cherie's car finally gets a well deserved wash
Our whole summer trip was amazing, one of the best holidays I've had in ages, and when we returned to Auckland we carried on the fun, taking David over to Waiheke for wine tasting, to the Coromandal for some tense games of cards (never play 500 with Dave and Colin on opposing teams) and for what was becoming the traditional trip to the Lime Pools and the Saw Mill for dinner.... MZ won the prize for possibly the best action shots taken, and great facial expressions! Dave loved it so much he changed his flights and stayed for the engagement party... but more of that in the next blog!
