Sunday, February 19, 2006

After the bungy

Since my last post I have hopped back onto the bus and made my way to Dunedin. The bus ticket I am using right now is the one that I bought off of a girl for $200 less than what it was selling for. We ran into some problems with the transfer of the ticket though so for the next week I am Natalie Roper (which is fine because it makes me think of Threes Company). Anyway, on the way to Dunedin we stopped at a place called Tunnel Beach. Basically in the 1800s this guy owned the land. The beach was and still is surrounded by sandstone cliffs, making acces to the beach impossible. So the guy carved a 10m tunnel through the sandstone to get to the beach. He then gave the beach to his daughter for her birthday so she would have her own private beach (Daddy'll do it). The beach is now public and even though there is a tunnel it is still pretty hard to get to. It's a 20 minute walk downhill to get to the beach and then to get back up the hill it takes about another 40 minutes. Crazy.

After the tunnel beach walk our driver took us to Baldwin St. Baldwin St is in the guiness book of world records for being the worlds steepest street. It didn't look that steep but I didn't try to walk up it since I had just walked uphill for the past 40 minutes. After Baldwin St. I went to the Cadbury factory and took a tour. I enjoyed free chocolate and I got to see all of the cadbury chocolates that we don't get in the US. I had no idea that they made more than the eggs that I get at Easter. It turns out they make loads of chocolate but they only sell certain types where there is no competition. So since in the US we already have Mars bars we don't Cadbury's Moro's (which I think are better).

Yesterday I went to the Speights beer brewery for a tour. Speights is THE beer in the south and it was cool to get a tour and some free samples. They are very proud of their beer here. The great thing is that both the Speights brewery and the Cadbury factory are only a five minute walk from my hostel.

Dunedin is the third largest city in NZ and it contains the University of Otago, which is the largest Uni in NZ. It's got some really cool architecture and things like that. I'll post pics soon.

Tomorrow is the day my family has been waiting for. I will be seeing penguins. And if the weather is nice I will be able to swim with some dolphins. I am heading to a place called Curio Bay. It's population is 11 people (no lie). After Curio Bay I am heading to Invercargill which is as close as I am going to get to Antartica and the southernmost point that I am travelling to. By the end of the week I will be in Milford Sound. Milford Sound is actually a fjiord and is supposedly something that you have to see when in NZ. My plans are to stay there for a couple of days and kayak the sound. Then it's back to Queenstown.

I don't think I will have cheap internet access until I get back into Queenstown about a week from now so yet again this is goodbye. But don't worry I will have tons of pictures to share!

Thanks for all the comments about the bungy jump. They all made me smile and made me realize that I can't wait to come home and see everyone!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Playing with Penguins and swimming with dolphins ... the jealousy just keeps getting worse!

Be safe kayaking the sound, ocean kayaking is freakishly scary ... well at least I thought it was and I don't scare easily like you Miss Elyse ... although bungee jumping has seriously altered my view of your riskiness! You're crazy and I'm loving it!

Anonymous said...

i loved this:

"The great thing is that both the Speights brewery and the Cadbury factory are only a five minute walk from my hostel."

-jill