March 24 - 27

It was only a short drive to Dunedin from Moeraki, although this one wasn't so picturesque! We found the cheapest campsite - which also happened to be the one closest to town and set up to stay for a few nights. We headed into town (about a 35 min walk) and got an instantly good feel for the town. Dunedin is the South Island's second city and home of NZ's first University. It also has a statue of Robbie Burns, echoing its foundation by Scottish settlers. 'Dunedin' is also celtic for 'Edinburgh'!

Our first afternoon was spent orientating ourselves, buying more necessities such as clothes and a heater (ours broke!) before trekking back which seemed to take twice as long as the sun was now beeming down on us and we were laden with shopping. Luckily Sean was with me and he ended up carrying most things along with my handbag - if only I'd gotten a photo! We were going to head out for drinks but instead had another night in the camper thinking that Friday night would be better for beers and hopefully meeting people!

On our second day we woke up and Sean was like a kid at Christmas as we were heading to the Cadbury's Factory for a tour! We headed into town and Sean was all giggly and excited - even more so once we walked through the factory doors. Everywhere you looked there was something chocolate related and after reading Chris and Kirsty's blog Sean tried to swot up on some facts so that he could win extra chocolate on the way round. Our tour guide arrived and he looked just like Willy Wonka - just much more cheerful!

The tour started with us all putting hair nets on, and Sean being the only person in the group with a beard also had to wear one which covered most of is face! Very amusing! The tour lasted about an hour or so and at numerous points we were given chocolate bars, even though some of them were marshmallow or banana (not so good) we were still loving it. You got to see how the factory works and some stations were in action as we passed by which left an amazing smell of chocolate on the tour and also meant that we got to eat liquid chocolate. Needless to say at this point I was feeling pretty sick. As I mentioned earlier, during the tour you get to win more chocolate if you answer questions correctly, Sean was first in there but wasn't loud enough so some chinese fella took his crunchie instead. It was quite amusing to see the look on Sean's face when I kept getting questions right and adding more chocolate to the bag, he looked like a kid that had been told he wasn't allowed any more chocolate bless him. Luckily, unlike Sean, I share!

Later in the tour we also got to see a chocolate waterfall which somehow managed to get all over my sleeve and finally end up in the shop, suprise suprise. However, the good thing was that the goodies they had on sale were amazingly cheap compared to in all the other shops. Of course we added to our freebies by purchasing several more large bars and a bag of 'Jaffas' which they love in New Zealand. These were supposed to last a long time, but of course the supplies are already dwindling!

After the tour, we headed over to the railway station, which is the second most photographed building in Australasia after the Sydney Opera House due to it's amazing architecture The architect himself has earned the nickname 'Gingerbread George'. After this we wandered over to St. Paul's Cathedral and got chatting to a volunteer inside who told us about the history (the altar section looked much more modern and was added at a later date when they realised the building was no longer big enough). She also was genuinely interested in our travels and shared many of her travel adventures with us. The Aussies and Kiwis sure seem to travel the world a lot! The Kiwi's are also really friendly and keen to talk about what we have been up to and offer advice.

That evening we met up with an english couple we'd got chatting to on the Cadbury's tour and went for a glass of wine or six! It was a good evening, followed by a drunken walk home, eating chips and climbing into our bed before the rain came pelting down on the roof. Unfortunately Rochelle and Wes were going the other way to us but hopefully I'll get to see them in South America.

For our last full day in Dunedin we made our way to the other factory tour, this time a treat of a more adult nature - the Speights Brewery! Speights is the best selling beer in New Zealand and yet is produced solely by a small staff at it's original, 145 year-old brewery. Our tour guide was a true expert, having worked at the brewery for a number of years following his emigration from a small Scottish town near Glasgow, and his awesome beard and broad Scottish brogue gave him a real air of authority.

We were shown the inner workings and machinery, including the only remaining working copper fermentation tanks in the world, and finally the tour ended in the bar for the moment we'd all been waiting for - 15 minutes of free beer with 6 to chose from. Janine was pulled out from the crowd to pull me the first glass and being the responsible tourist, I was keen to soak up all the history and tradition of Speights by necking as many free beers as possible. Speights ale is actually superb, and they have some full-bodied dark beers that fans of Belgian lager, like me, will appreciate (dad you would have loved it).

After the brewery tour we made our way to the Otago museum to check out their exhibition on faces and take a look at some of the artifacts on display that used to belong to Sir Edmund Hillary, some of which were used on his famous first historic ascent of Everest. Some would argue that a museum visit should come before a brewery tour but to those people I would say they should try it the other way round, a couple of lunchtime glasses of Speights finest could make even an exhibition of paint-drying techniques interesting!

The 'Faces' exhibition was great fun, an interactive exploration of the human face where you get to try out CG techniques such as aging and merging faces - all I can say is that 75-year-old Janine and Sean will defo not be winning any beauty contests!