Coasting along the Southern Scenic Route

Yellow eyed penguins, an albatross colony, waterfalls, and Hector's dolphins all "don't miss" attractions along the Southern Scenic Route of the South Island. We must have been too nervous about driving (and especially each other's driving) because we missed all of that! After filling up our car (to the tune of NZ$94) we made our way to Dunedin, a large Scotish-like city centre that is the home of Cadbury Chocolates, Speights Beer, Penguins and the Albatross (not the bar). Guide books recommend a drive along the Otago Pennisula to catch a viewing of the albatross and penguins--but all we saw were hundreds of seagulls and two sleeping sea lions. The one attraction we were really looking forward to was Cathedral Caves and had to time the visit with low tide, since the caves are only accessible via a beach walk. Unlike every other day in which the low tide was mid afternoon, the low tide happened to fall at 8:30 a.m. on the day we planned to go. Despite being on vacation, we both agreed (with some twisting of the arm) to wake up early to drive the hour from our campsite. We treked through the bush, made our way across the beach and entered the enormous caves. Cathedral-like they were, and about the closet thing we came to a religious experience.

Since it was a Sunday, we thought it would be nice to carry out our Sunday tradition of coffee and crosswords, so we found a cafe and that's how we spent the rest of our morning. After the puzzles were solved and our mugs were empty we continued on to Curio Bay, site of the world's largest Jurasic fossilized forest.

Our last stop was Marcie's (Chris's friend) beach house for a few days of relaxing and taking a vacation from our vacation. Many of the nearby beaches are littered with gemstones and fossils and Chris had a field day scavenging. To his disappointment, he came back empty handed.

We wrapped up our "tour of the south of the south" with a meal of the ubiquitous fish n' chips and a nice bottle of white wine.