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Saturday saw me leave Stewart Island and travel with the Stray bus crew to Dunedin. Our bus stopped off at Catlins Wilderness, where if you go down to the rocky beach you will see a petrified forest. Whats that you ask? 180 million years ago lava and ash mixed with flood water and completely demolished this forest. The trees didnt decompose in the ash filled water, and so became fossilized. The remains are all solid rock, but look like normal wood that had been felled yesterday. Apparently its one of if ot the only remains of petrified forest in the world. We also saw some seals lazing around by the beach.
Dunedin ahs huge scottish influence, it was established by early scottish settlers, and the word Dunedin is actually old gaelic for Edinburgh. One thing Dunedin is famous for is the production of Speights beer, so it was onlyright for me to go on a brewery tour, where i got to drink lots of beer at the end of the tour.
The next morning we had a brief walk around the city, I got to see the impressive Dunedin Railway Station and also the Sunday market. On the way up to Queenstown we stopped off briefly at Baldwin Street ( just outside Dunedin) which is the worlds steepest street! Bit of a walk getting to the top, although this german guy on the bus decided to run up it...is he crazy?! It was so funny watching him get slower and slower the steeper the road got...fair play tho.
From Dunedin we went back to Queenstown for a night, where i had another famous Fergburger for tea, they are the nicest burgers ever!
Monday 1st saw me leave Queenstown and head up to Christchurch. We had some spectacular views of Mount Cook en route though, there were also some beautiful still mirrored lakes that reflected the hills in the background very clearly. Perfect symatry. For lunch we stopped at lake Tekapo, a beautiful blue coloured lake. The lake is a glacial lake and gets its vibrant baby blur colour from the sediment and minerals that had been churned up by the glacier that created it from the last ice age. The views were really nice as we ate lunch by the small Good Shepards Church. The lake is also surrounded by mountains, such a spectacular and tranquil place to be. Onwards to Christchurch...Christchurch has a real english feel about it, the buildings, street names etc. I went to see the Cathedral and walked around the city for a few hours. A nice city from what I saw :)
3rd Feb - Christchurch to Kaikoura. Kaikoura means 'meal of crayfish', this place is famous for its whale and dolphin watching. We stayed not to far from the sea front, and in the afternoon I went out on a fishing charter. I chose this over whale watching as I want to come back to New Zealand and still have things to see and do. We went out and caught some crayfish (lobsters), blue cod and sea perch. One crayfish is worth around $40, and teh amount of fish we caught more than paid for the afternoon fishing on the boat...we had a huge tea of seafood! Crayfish is delicious. That night we had a small pub quiz across the road, nothing heavy.
The next day it was back up to the north island, up to picton then i got the ferry across to wellington. The Wellington Rugby 7's tournament was on, so the city was packed with people gearing up for a big weekend. I'd brought my outgoing flight forward by a few weeks which is the reason that my last week or so in new zealand was kind of rushed. We had an overnight stop at wellington before a long 8 hour coach trip up to Auckland, with a brief stop at Taupo. I stayed with John and Tracey for a couple of nights to collect and sort out my things before heading back to Auckland the night before my flight. That night i watched Avatar in 3d at the Auckland Imax theatre.
The next day i flew out to Australia and Sydney...and left the amazing country that is New Zealand behind, waiting for me to return again sometime in the future.
I've met some amazing people here, I've been lucky enough to travel with manay amzingly cool people who have been so friendly. Everyone that I have spent time with have helped make this experience in New Zealand extremely enjoyable! Thank you very very much everyone, it's been great. Now I'm moving onto part 3 of my worldwide travels...OZ!
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