Intro to our Christmas 2012 Trip South

For our Christmas Trip in 2012 we chose to return to the South Island and go up the East Coast starting at Dunedin touring all the way north to Picton where we'd catch the ferry back to Wellington.  You can track our trek from the:

Red at Dunedin and the southern area to Gore

Green from Gore to Oamaru

Yellow from Oamaru to Christchurch

Blue from Christchurch to Kaikoura

Red from Kaikoura to Picton

The light blue represents the two previous trips

 we made to the south island so you can see that we pretty much covered all the bases!

Below will be six separate posts for each segment of our trip...

Hope you all enjoy the scenery as much as we did!

Dunedin and the Surrounding Area

We'd been told that Dunedin was not picturesque 

but we'd disagree for sure!  We found it most beautiful

and full of sites to explore and things to do.

Let's start with the beautiful setting right in Dunedin!  It was

rainy and overcast when we arrived but you can see below the

full picture!  Dunedin is at the far right with the Pacific off

in the distance.  Cruise ships come to the port in the middle

of the picture and disembark passengers who catch a train for

the ride into Dunedin.

Here you can see the city and it's setting from the north

Here's the setting from the south

 

The little piece of land in the middle of the
 photo is where the ships come to dock

You should be able to make out the lighthouse on the head of
land to the left.  At the top of that area is where the
National Albatross Center is located.  We'll see it a little later.

There were two cruise ships in port while we were there

The inner city is full of fun.  Below you see Ann 

pointing  not at the truck, but at the

 CADBURY CHOCOLATE the truck represents! 

Near the train station was this skateboard park

One of the attractions in the area is "Baldwin Street"

known as the World's Steepest Street.

Dunedin is full of gothic style buildings

This is the world renowned train station

Here's a sampling of the other buildings around town.

One of the interesting places to visit in town

 is the "Settler's Museum".

One of the attractions around Dunedin is the Larnach Castle.

It's actually about 30 minutes outside Dunedin on the hills south

 of town.  They call it a castle, but it's really just a large beautiful home that looks like a castle on the outside.

The views of the grounds from atop the castle are very picturesque

The above & below views are looking from the castle top to the

 northwest and entrance to the Dunedin harbor

The views below are around the castle grounds

Then a little further out from the Larnach Castle is the 

Royal Albatross Centre.  It offers a tremendous study of one of the largest birds in the world with a wingspan 

approaching 8 feet or 2 meters.

There's a beautiful lighthouse that overlooks the entrance to the harbor.  You can't visit the lighthouse because you'd 
tramp through the Albatross nesting fields.

The view is amazing from atop the Albatross Centre.
If you look closely you can see about 8 white spots in the green
grass of this photo.  Each of them is an Albatross.

If you were wondering, the photo below gives you 
a representation of the size of an Albatross

This is a seagull chick, not an Albatross

And you thought you'd see all the seal photos we had...

there were some at the base of the Albatross Centre

A little seal slobber isn't too bad

The last thing we did based out of Dunedin was to take the Taieri Gorge Train.  It's a 4-hour ride that takes you though an
 amazing gorge that offers great views.

Going over large bridges was one of the attractions

At the end of the first 2 hours, the train stopped and the locomotive was moved the the end of the train for the return trip

Here and in the photo below you can see wild goats

 

Who is that cuttie hanging out the train?

 

The views up the gorge were amazing

Then out of the gorge and onto the plains west of Dunedin

The train sitting at the station in Dunedin after our trip