Mar 11, 2013 - Dunedin

Today we visited Dunedin and toured the area in vintage Jaguar motor cars. Our group was five beautiful cars and our chauffeur driven fleet visited a wonderful Church named "First Church", a quick stop at the steepest road in the world? a visit to the Dunedin historic Railroad station. A great tour of Speight's Brewery including a visit to the tasting room, finally a fantastic tour of the Olveston home.

Mar 7, 2013 - Dunedin

Survived a very cold night. The temperature went down to only three degrees above freezing. Have one good, wool blanket but it was not enough. I was cold and did not sleep well. The weather for the past week has been very bad. Today was better. The weather for the next week is supposed to be partly cloudy and partly sunny with about 20 degrees in the day and a low of 10 at night. Not great but much better. Drove north to the city of Dunedin today. Stopped to look for birds along the way but didn't see anything new.

Jan 21, 2013 - Travel is not all Roses

Mishaps: Travel is not all roses By Hugh Moloney If you read only our blogs so far, you might guess that our adventures this year are mostly rosy. This entry will inform you that travel is not always fun. Over the course of 5 days since our return to New Zealand from Australia, we have had some mishaps that are thorns in our sides. When we returned to New Zealand from Australia into the Christchurch airport we were informed after a one hour inspection of our tent (Liz’s tent was okay) that it was carrying several spiders and ticks and...

Jan 19, 2013 - Day 09

Day 9 – Dunedin 19th January 2013 We arrived in Port Chalmers early this morning and then got a shuttle bus into Dunedin. It is a pretty place but it was very cold. We took in a number of sights around the city. We checked out the beautiful train station, then a museum, churches and then the Speights brewery – however, there were no tours as it was Saturday. We then went to a pub next door where they had a sampling tray of 8 beers for NZ$20 which was quite good. They had a few good beers which we all enjoyed. We went on this city and sights...

Jan 8, 2013 - Tour Ends; We Spend Night in Dunedin

We arrived in Dunedin harbor around 6:00 am. After clearing customs (since we had stopped in Macquarie Island, Australia, we were re-entering New Zealand) we disembarked the ship, walked on stable land and said our goodbyes to the staff and other passengers. Buses took us to our hotel and the tour was over. Some passengers that had later in the day airline reservations stored their luggage at our hotel. We toured downtown Dunedin and found a great place for lunch. After they left, Mabel went shopping to get rid of our remaining New Zealand...

Sep 10, 2012 - Two Weeks to Go (but 'Hugh's' counting?)

(Title courtesy of David Crawley) Okay - so I'm still nowhere near the airport, but in my head I'm getting closer. Between me and then are a whole host of things to do. 'Research and Study Leave' does not, despite popular family opinion, mean that I'm sitting back, swanning around, whatever. Some days I feel like I'm making progress, but on others I feel like I've just gone back several steps. So today I'm getting out of the way a host of small jobs that otherwise would amount to several evenings. Tomorrow I'm back to the 'study'; today I'm...

Sep 4, 2012 - Chocolate, Beer, Sea Lions, and Penguins!

Dunedin! Today was a busy day! We woke up, packed up Dampy, and headed out to the Albatross colony… only to find out that the Albatross center was closed and we had no idea where to walk to in order to see the albatross… sad day. Ahhhh well.. it was pretty and cliffy.. and I could even see the top of a lighthouse at a hill in the distance.. so I took a picture for you Gran! Our next adventure was to drop Viviane off at the beach to see the penguins! Viv decided not to do the Cadbury and Speights tours with us, so she hung out at the beach...

Sep 3, 2012 - Adventure City, Q-Town!

QUEENSTOWN! Ahhhhh…. Q-Town…. We headed out of Geraldine bright and early Saturday morning. We had about a 3 hour drive to Queenstown. The day was cloudy.. but not awful… We stopped in the town of fruits… yeah fruit… they had a giant fruit statue in the middle of town… Cromwell was the name of it… to eat lunch (ham sandwiches). We got to Queenstown around 2 or 3… found a camper van sight.. and headed into town to see what was up. I booked my bungy jump and a scenic flight and cruise through Milford Sound! We asked around to see what was the...

Aug 12, 2012 - Dunedin Jottings

I'm sitting in our newly renovated studio, looking out on a mist-swathed Mt Cargill and, down the valley, a soggy and wintry Dunedin. In 6 1/2 weeks I'll be swapping a sunnier, spring-filled locale for a soggy and wintry Edinburgh. Such is life. At present I'm beavering away on New Zealand children and the missionary movement in late colonial New Zealand. There I'll be beavering away on Scottish children and the missionary movement in the same era. So - this is just a first entry to paint the backdrop for more adventures to come. Welcome to...

May 23, 2012 - Dunedin

Our time in Dunedin has been very full. We arrived here just in time to take the Taieri Gorge train excursion. We were totally amazed with the stunning Edwardian architecture of the train station itself. There are Royal Dalton mosaic tiles on the floor, and intricate stain glass windows with a train motif. The train trip was enjoyable, but nothing like the TranzAlpine train. Today we started with a city tour which included the Victorian homes, views of the harbour, and the Otaga University, the biggest employer and industry in the City. We...

May 13, 2012 - Onward to Dunedin

We weren't really planning to go to Dunedin but then Fel (Rosy's sister) said we had to say "hi," to her friend, Tim, and eat at Velvet Burger so we decided to make the trek out there to check out where Fel lived for a semester. We arrived just in time for the Otago graduation and the parade down the center of town. Unfortunately, because Tim was graduating (well, fortunately for him, unfortunately for us) we didn't get to meet him, so instead we filled our day with burger eating (at Velvet Burger, way better than Fergburger), beer drinking...

Apr 10, 2012 - Dunedin

Hi all, Only real disapiontment of NZ so far. Touted as the Edinburgh of NZ it fails to live up to its billing. A student town geared up for shopping with an industrial town annexx. At least we picked up a new laptop and grabbed a few bargains before moving on. The brewing kindly gives out free (by donation) miniral water from a tap at the side of the building, which we grabbed a few gallons of and there is a Norwich (Union) building there. Also Dunedin has the most ill informed immigaration office staff. We went into enquire about...