Dunedin photo gallery

Back in time to Dunedin at the bottom of the South Island... After Napier, where coconuts could be grown if it were a couple of degrees warmer in winter, the plants and trees 700km further south look more like what Dutch Wingnut is used to. North Islanders tend to say that Dunedin is very nice...in good weather, which doesn't happen often, according to them. But I think Dunedin is perfectly nice, it feels kinda cosy for all that it's so spread out.

On Saturday morning, Wingnut and me went to Larnach Castle, which is a bijou castle on Otago Peninsuala. We had some trouble getting there as, once again, you're stuffed if you don't have a car. The only way of getting up there for us was with a tour. Which, to be fair, was worth the money.

(Given its clean green image, you might think that NZ has environmentally friendlier ways than cars to transport the many tourists around. And that things like plastic bags have long been banned from supermarkets. You might very well think that.)

Anyway, I loved the castle, neo-gothic is so much fun. The interior has been mostly restored and, in a nice touch, there are no ropes around the furniture so visitors can move freely around the rooms. The tower has unsurpassed views of the bay. Now I understand why William Larnach built his castle a day's ride from town. There are also beautiful gardens with Alice in Wonderland touches (the current owner is a Carroll fan).

While I got to look at the penguins on Friday, Wingnut gave his talk at the University of Otago which was well-received. It's an attractive university. A lot of Scots settled in Dunedin and so the old university buildings are in stone and based on Glasgow's. Most of the students hadn't arrived for the new semester yet, so we missed the couch burning in the streets. Don't ask me why they do that, it's not like they have a lot of furniture in the first place.

We flew back via Christchurch, the day after someone made a no-hope attempt at hijacking a plane going from Blenheim to Christchurch. We seem to be good at missing dramas.