Tour d' South Island: They Are Here! Off to Dunedin first.

Kia Ora!

Hold on! Off we zoomed in an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) through water and mud, high up on the

Otago Peninsula coast

mountain overlooking the South Ocean and Otago Harbour, back

down to view a seal nursery and penguin nesting area. What an introduction to New Zealand for our guests. None of us got too muddy as our host put rubberized coats on us for this adventures.

Seal babies napping

Our guests from the United States have arrived. In all the time we have lived in New Zealand, (Invercargill,

Four adventurous women

Greymouth, Takapuna, and now Timaru), only Sam Kvale came to visit us in Invercargill. Our daughter, Rev. Sarah D. Odderstol, her mother-in-law Barbara Odderstol, and her good friend and ours, Susan Breyer flew into Christchurch recently. So the next series on this blog will record our adventures as they and I dash like tornadoes through South Island. These energetic women did not spend much time recovering from jet lag before we were on the road. 

Rock garden charms us

First stop, Dunedin, a visit to the Botanic Gardens, and a tour of Otago Peninsula. This is the first and oldest botanic garden in New Zealand and one of the best of many. Most towns of any size feature a public garden of some sort. We were taken with the rock garden, which was flourishing on this sunny spring day.

Richard, our driver and tour leader, made an unscheduled stop at the Maori marae (meeting house/compound) and church on Dunedin

Marae

peninsula. In addition to the ATV tour of the baby seals and yellow-eyed penguins, we had a short visit to the albatross colony center. Unfortunately, we were not able to view these giant birds as it is mating season and the viewing room is

Blue penguins hustle home at night

closed during this time. But we were able to watch the Blue Penguins, smallest in the world at about 12 inches, come to their nests in holes in the ground after a day in the sea.

Anglican Cathedral

Of course there was a wee bit of shopping to be done. Sarah and Sue attended a service at one of Dunedin's distinguished churches.


Next, heading further south.



Cheers,
Kiwi Traveler