Day 4 10/2/13 Dunedin

A leisurely start to the morning and again it was sunny with the promise of a warm day, which it was at 26degrees, perfect for traveling. We had a 9.30am tour at Cadbury Chocolates, a major employer in the town. This was the weekend tour for 45mins and if you answered questions along the way you got lots of chocolate and at the start of the tour you got a goodie bag of chocolates, we ended up with a good kitty. The tour of course ends at the shop and it was hard to resist buying four blocks of chocolate for NZ$10, a bargain we thought!!, interestingly blocks are made in Tasmania, we of course selected the healthy dark chocolate with the anti-oxidants and have been sampling these as we travel around. Afterwards we went for our coffee fix at Nectar passing by the Octagon, which is the centre of Dunedin, where an Army ceremony was occurring which involved a Haka and the guy who was leading certainly looked fearsome. We looked at the shops and drove out to Port Chalmers where the views are amazing of the harbour and the Otago Peninsula. We then headed for the Dunedin train station, which is a prominent structure in Dunedin with quite a work of art, built in a Flemish Renaissance-style about 1906 of basalt and limestone from NZ with granite pillars and it has a large square clock tower. It has over 725,000 Royal Doulton porcelain squares in a colourful mosaic on the floor of the main foyer. This is where our 2.30pm Taieri Gorge Railway tour to Pukerangi left from. This is one of the world's great train journeys and we were not disappointed. The scenery is spectacular and is not accessible by car, and during the 58km trip you go through 12 tunnels, one being over 440metres in length and magnificent viaducts (17 in total), one being the Wingatui Viaduct which took 42years to build, beginning in 1879. There are several stops along the way at small sidings and you can stand on the balcony at the end of each carriage and the rear of the train to watch the scenery go by, which is what we did. You see where earthquakes have changed the landscape and various birds and fauna, this was a fabulous trip which we really enjoyed. We walked back to our motel, where Max the house poodle greeted us and then headed off to dinner at St Clair beach to watch the sunset and the surfers. We had a beautiful dinner at Pier 24 restaurant of venison and salmon. We really enjoyed Dunedin which has a population of 125,000 and it is so easy to drive around and get a park; we found coffee, food, wine (and cider) along with great friendliness in Dunedin.

Day 5 11/2/13 Dunedin to Invercargill

Today we drove to Invercargill via Balclutha, where we had our daily coffee which as usual was very good. We then continued to the Catlins, the Southern Scenic Route and while it is longer than the main highway we would highly recommend this route, as while you still see plenty of sheep and cows you follow the beautiful rugged coast rather than inland and also do plenty of walking to get to some of the sights. A lot of the driving is on untarred roads which are in good condition. There are many quirky things in NZ and today we saw the teapot display at Owaka. At Nugget Point we saw fur seals frolicking and then Purakaunui Falls which were gorgeous with a lovely walk through a forest. Curio Bay is an amazing area of the Jurassic era and as it was low tide we were able to see the fossil forests exposed. There was a rare yellow-eyed penguin chick at this beach waiting for its parents to return. We then went onto Slope Point which is the most southern point of NZ and the wind blows in off the Antarctica and the trees are virtually bent over. You had to walk through a private farm paddock dodging the @hi! to get to this spot and after the ubiquitous photo indicating "we was here" we smartly headed back to the car as it was windy, 12degrees with a chill factor of 1degrees and had started to rain. We then went onto Bluff, the most southern township in NZ and finally to Invercargill. We had a lovely fish dinner at Speights Pub and as they had Banofee Pie this was hard to resist and we really enjoyed it!!

Day 6 12/2/13 Invercargill to Te Anau

It was a sunny 12 degree morning and we had a look around Invercargill and to John's delight we went to a hardware store Hayes & Son, not for tools, but this is the location of Burt Monroe's Indian bikes, which the movie The Fasted Indian was based on. We then headed via beautiful rolling hills and grazing lands to Tuatapere and had our coffee and a Cornish Pastie at Yesteryear Café which had many quirky items, mainly from the kitchen. We continued to the wooden Clifden Suspension Bridge over the once might Waiau River built in 1899 and spanning 111.5metres. It replaced the punt and remained in use until 1978. After this we travelled Te Anau via Manapouri, where we entered the majestic Fiordland with towering mountains, some with snow still on them. Our motel The Kingsgate is across from the lake and we had a good walk around the town which has a village feel and lots of beautiful flowers in particular roses and lavender. We have helped the economy of Te Anau by doing some retail therapy, then, had a leisurely afternoon, sipping on some NZ wine and cider. Today has been another beautiful day and we are hoping for the same tomorrow as we head to Milford Sound.