• Travel to Dunedin
• Dunedin Botanical Gardens

Today was started earlier than expected with a piercing alarm sounding like an evacuation alarm (or a air raid siren) at 3am! (found out in the morning that the local fire brigade use the siren to notify the volunteers to come in, which apparently causes a lot of problems with the tourists, especially those from countries where they have been bombed). Anyhow… We packed in the morning and headed off to Dunedin.

The drive this time a lot smoother than the previous drives and mainly through farm land (there appears to be a requirement to trim the pine trees back from the road reserve, but must be limited to a certain height, or there's an equipment limit, as there are heaps of weird looking hedges of pine trees neatly trimmed but with the top bit still overhanging).

Took 3hr & 45min to get to Dunedin, which is huge compared to where we have been so far - i.e. it's a city - it made for a stark contrast to the driving experience to suddenly hit a bustling city. The most confusing thing is the slight difference, yet fundamental, change in road rules - i.e. at traffic lights, if you have a green arrow to go straight, but don't have a green left arrow & are turning left - then the cars crossing the intersection from the other direction turning right have right of way over you (well at-least that's what it seems based on nearly being taken out by a number of cars) - fortunately Dan had mentioned there was some weird difference when turning so I was proceeding cautiously!

Tried to buy beer, but apparently you need to have a NZ driver's license or a passport on you to purchase, Australian photographic ID is not enough! (as it happened Rachel did have her passport on her). The supermarket here (New World) is huge - especially when compared to where we have been previously, but even when compared to Perth, it was large (largely since alcohol can be sold in the supermarkets here, this does account for a large section).

Once we had settled into our hotel (which is a small but nifty setup - we chose this because it's very new, but also very well priced - and like all the hotels ranked well on Trip advisor, the rooms are well equipped but crammed in, including a circular bathroom!), we drove up to the botanical gardens (about 8 minute drive down the road). These are fantastic, not a very popular day (had been raining earlier, but as always seems to be the case, as soon as we go to do something outdoors the rain clears)so we almost had the entire gardens to ourselves. They have an impressive number of species of birds in large aviaries and a number of walkways through the gardens. They made for a great walk (even if half the birds and plants where Australian).