South Island Trip - Day 1

We are back from Jeremy’s birthday trip to the South Island. We kept very busy and will post all about our adventures over the next few days.

Day One – Dunedin

Our vacation started in Dunedin, which is the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island. After landing in Dunedin on Friday morning, we decided to head north of the city to visit the Moeraki Boulders. Along the way we stopped at Shag Point which is a haven for penguins, seals and shags. I’m not why but this place was deserted! We were the only people freezing our bums off to hang out with the seals and birds.

The boulders were really neat as well. They are huge rock spheres that lie along the beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t get there at low tide, so some of them were covered by water. Jeremy also got trapped on one when a wave came in to shore. His soggy socks weren’t his favorite part of the day.

Once in Dunedin, we drove through around for a bit and found the Steepest Street in the World, Baldwin Street (seriously, it won a Guinness World Record). The pictures do nothing to show how steep the road it. We tried to drive up it, but really thought the car might flip over backwards and quickly reversed back down to safety!

We then took a stroll through the city to visit Otago University (New Zealand’s big Science University), popped into the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and then went on a Speight’s Brewery tour. Speight’s is “The Pride of the South.” The tour was very informative and the tasting was, well, tasty! During the tour we met Larry and Eliza who are visiting New Zealand from San Francisco. We ended up grabbing an early dinner with them in the Brewery restaurant before losing a bit of money at the Dunedin Casino.

After a day full of adventure, we tucked in (and tried to keep warm) for the night! We also hoped and prayed the Saturday would bring some sunshine as vacation just isn’t as much fun with freezing rain.