Day 12 - Lullaby of Birdland

One of the odder things in the Castle

Castle Garden

We awoke to lousy weather at the castle, when we opened the 

   curtains, what was supposed to have a "royal" view of the valley and town of Dunedin, didn't even show the driveway, but we were in our toasty fire place heated room. We had a lovely breakfast, prepared by John 2, what we affectionately called our butler. Then John 1 (what we called our chauffeur) came to fetch us for the day. We are two of four at the Camp Estate House, an adjunct of Larnach Castle, and started our day by going to the Castle for a look see and a walk through the gardens which are now winterized. The castle has a wonderful history and had been beautifully restored. The butler was kind enough to print our Sunday NY Times puzzle for us. We like the butler and chauffeur thing.

Then it was down the mountain to Dunedin where we took a walk. We went to the Train Station, which is a lovely building in a country of particularly plain towns, and then up the hill to the Octagon, which was the first area of the city. When the town was founded Engineers drew a map of what the area looked like, but without the geographic hills and dales, and sent it to England to have the city designed, which they did without thought to these hills and valleys. Odd city, very very steep streets, one of which is in the book of records as the steepest street in the world.

Dunedin Train Station

Feeding Albatross

We wandered around a bit, had pizza for lunch and went on to the Albatross Reserve where we saw several babies, one being fed by a parent, not able to tell whether it was a mom or dad unless you see them together, or you look at their leg bands.

With a couple of hours to kill we had soup at the reserve and moved on down the road to see the Yellow Eyed Penguins. This was really exciting. The mom and daddy yellow eyes were just coming home from fishing, so we got to see them coming out of the water and walking to their little huts. They are very anti-social so we had to keep our distance. Cute little buggers with yellow eyes!!!!!!! We walked through underground trenches to where they were walking up the hills to their homes, and then back into the trenches under their paths so a couple walked over our heads, you could hear their claws on the wood. A bunch of fur seals were lounging on the grass. Very lazy. If they are not hungry they can just lay on the grass for days in the sun ( if there ever would be any).

Yellow Eyed Penguin (Patricia) 

After a long walk up the steps from the penguin beach we went back to the estate for our castle dinner. Four of us, the other two were a lovely couple from England, sat in the Castle's formal dining room and were served a lovely dinner. Butler, chauffeur, maid, what could be better. We were alone in the Camp Estate overnight, no other guests, so when they brought us back from dinner they locked us in. Felt a little like the Hound of the Baskervilles, with the fog and the wind howling but we survived to write this entry!

Another great sky

Since we cant match it we are off to Lake Tekapo for the soon to be last leg of our NZ journey.