I woke up after 4 hours sleep on 16th June VERY tired and had to get up and pack my things for the bus to Dunedin. I got there at about 2pm and headed over to my friends Mario, Yolanda and Rupert Ray's house and it was SO exciting to see them! They moved to Dunedin from England a while ago so it was the first time I'd seen them in about 2 years, so it was very cool to meet up with them again, and kind of weird for it to be in New Zealand! I've only ever seen them in England before. That afternoon we went over to the beach and went for a chilled out walk along it, then a hot chocolate in one of the sea-front cafes, which was DELICIOUS and had a really cool design on the top; the silver fern from the NZ sports teams in chocolate powder! Very posh indeed. In the evening some friends of the Rays came round for roast chicken, which was very tasty indeed, especially because in true backpacker style I had been living off pasta and pesto for the previous two weeks solid! Their friends were really lovely as well and we all got on really well.

The next day Mario and Yolanda had to revise for their last uni exams and Rupert had lectures to go to too, so I met up with a really nice girl called Inka. She used to be my brother's office mate in Canada for two years and is now doing a PhD at Otago University in Dunedin, so Ben rang me up and told me that I had to meet up with her. We went for a 6 hour bike ride along to the Otago (the region of NZ Dunedin is in) Peninsula. The weather was gorgeous, blue skies and nice and sunny, however the bikes that we borrowed weren't so good! We are both pretty tall and the seats couldn't be lifted up so it made our legs ache as we had to lift them so high to peddle haha. The views from the peninsula were just stunning though, we went up to a summit to eat lunch where we saw a load of handgliders which was cool, one of whom happened to be Inka's landlord! We took the high cliff road there, which had quite a lot of up then quite a lot of down on the way to the beach, then took the other route back which was flat along the water's edge, and stopped in a quaint little town called Portabello to watch the sunset whilst drinking lemonade! How refined we are. If it wasn't for the sweaty bike gear we were in that is... hahaha.

We eventually got back to the Rays' house at about 7pm having left at 12.30pm pretty tired and cold (but satisfied by a great day's biking!) and in need of a good old hearty cup of tea! Inka stayed for dinner which was a delicious pasta bake and it was really nice for my two separate sets of friends to get to meet. It was really cool to get to know Inka myself as well as I hadn't actually met her before. I had heard so much about her from my brother and all of it turned out to be true, she is really lovely, and it was a great day.

The Friday brought about a happy reunion with my lovely scottish friends Neil and Jess, who looked as if they were both about to die. They had two of the worst hangovers I think I've ever seen; rather fitting then that we were off for a brewery tour of the Speights brewery! It was fairly good, but the best part was the free beer tasting and pizzas that we got at the end! We then went up the world's steepest street, Baldwin Street. Looking at it from the bottom it looked quite steep but fairly normal. Walking up it was a different story altogether! I don't think my calves have ever had to work so hard in their life, not even when I lived in Copan in Honduras and had to walk up the horrible steepest hill in the town every day, or not even when I had to walk up the one mile hill back home when my mum used to neglect to pick me up from the bus stop!

Saturday was pretty much the most exciting day of my whole time in Dunedin: RUGBY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I should probably say sports day, as the day started off by me waking up at 6.30am to watch England play Algeria in the football world cup. That was worth it.... NOT. What an awful match. Anyway, after that I made my way down into town to meet up with my fellow rugby-goers. We started off the day by heading down to the construction site of the new rugby ground in Dunedin, which is to be called Forsyth Barr Stadium (although people speculate that it will be nicknames the glasshouse). For those of you who don't know, Carisbrook, the rugby stadium in Dunedin, is no longer to be used for international rugby, and will most likely be knocked down in a year or two, so they are building a new stadium. It was pretty cool to be there seeing it built, but in the end it was just a construction site, and 45 minutes to see it really was not necessary!

We then headed over to one of the student bars called the Captain Cook, where we had brunch and got given some free souvenir T shirts for the game, which I actually really like! We then were scheduled to go to the "nude international" which is a jokey match that is put on before international rugby test matches, so it was a load of Kiwis playing 7-a-side rugby which numbers painted on their backs in either red for Wales or black for the "nude blacks", actually naked. I've never seen anything like it in my life and it was hilarious! They even did a naked haka, to which the "welsh" side responded by doing ring-a-ring-of-roses then throwing leeks at them!! So funny.

Anyway, after those shinanigans we headed over to Southern Rugby club which is near the Carisbrook stadium, and chilled there for a while drinking a couple of beers, eating chicken pie and mash, then getting our faces painted up for the game. I would usually support Wales if they were playing a side other than England, but in this case I have to admit that I did support the Kiwis. It's because I love NZ so much, and I always love watching the All Blacks, so I thought that since I was in NZ I had better support them, especially considering it was to be the last match in that stadium! I was rather pleased with my design; a face half white half black with a white and a black eye, saying NZ in black on the white side and a silver fern in white on the black side. It looked pretty cool so thanks must go to my good scottie Jess who did it for me! We walked over to the stadium to get good places in the standing terrace where our tickets were. The atmosphere was electric (despite the many people I could smell smoking weed around me - ew!). The haka was amazing, probably what I was looking forward to most and it did not disappoint! I had a really good view aswell, I was just to the left of the half way line and half way up the terrace. The match was really exciting, full of action, and of course, unfortunately for the Welsh, they were thrashed 42-9, despite being a great rugby nation and looking very promising in the first 10 minutes or so! There were a couple of cool mexican waves, but the coolest one by far was the one just before the end which actually went around the stadium 6 times!! (that's right, I counted...) However, when it went around loads of people chucked there beer bottles in the air, so I ended up getting a a beer on the head! Afterwards they had fireworks and all sorts to celebrate the last test match at Carisbrook. Then some of the players came over to the stands and my friends told me I'd never make it, but I pushed my way down through the crowds and put my ticket in Brad Thorn's face, and I managed to get it signed by the legendary All Black!!! SOOOO cool! I was absolutely buzzing afterwards!!!

After the match, Yolanda, Mario, Yo's boyfriend Sam and I decided to go to the beach and went for an hour's walk along the coast in the dark, which was actually really fun!

Sunday and Monday were kind of laid-back (in that we didn't really go out too much) but also kind of hectic, as we had to pack up all of the Rays' belongings as they are actually off to England on holiday, but then moving house to Ethiopia! Some more of their friends came around though who I get on well with, so we played pool and all sorts, then me and Yolanda's friend Dara made lasagne and banana splits so that Liz (Mario's mum) wouldn't have to worry about cooking as well as packing here life away!

I left early on Tuesday morning and got back on the bus to go to Invercargill. I really liked Dunedin, I can see why the Rays chose to live there. I think if I were to move to NZ, it would be high up on the list of places to settle! It is a biggish but still quite small city, so there is plenty to see and do, it is in a stunning location, and it still doesn't have that horrible crushing big city feel about it. It is very laid back and everyone is so chilled out and friendly. I love it! And I love New Zealand. Luckily for me I still have two weeks left here!

So, until next time!

Joelle xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx