Hey,

So better late than never! Only 2 weeks late! Hope all is cool with everyone.

I wake up in dunedin and guess what the sun is actually out! So it's time to take full advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel and then it's off out in search of a decent coffee. I find myself in a nice little cafe sitting in the sun with my coffee - very nice. I have an hour to kill before my cadburys tour so it's time for a little explore. The factory is really busy, with kids - school holidays have well and truly kicked in and they are everywhere. Anyway after we have put on our really very attractive hairnets ( reminded me a bit of the lovely fly nets I got accustomed to wearing in the outback!) it's time to start the tour with our guide Maurice. We are now allowed to set foot in the choccy factory. It still amazes me how some people are just totally incapable of following any kind of simple instruction. We were asked to remain on the left of the corridors at all times to allow the factory staff to get past us so they could easily carry on with their jobs. So immediately to make sure they got to the front they block the entire corridor and every door way - incredible. I have built up quite a dislike for the 'me first' tourist since I've been away!!! Just rude and very annoying! Anyway, I digress, we arrive at the packaging section of the factory, it was astonishing to see the speed at how quickly a box of roses were put together. Suddenly it bought back memories of work and signing off loads of packaging artwork - I left fairly quickly! We then went to one of the silos where they used to store the crumb, at this point a tonne of liquid chocolate was released in a rather impressive chocolate fall. From here it was off to the chocolate tasting room, this was the bit I had been looking forward to. By this point we had been given loads of free samples and then three shots of liquid chocolate - I'll admit by this point I was beginning to feel a bit sick, but hey it was free food, and as any backpacker will know you NEVER refuse free food. This was pretty much the end of the tour and time to ditch the hair net and off to Baldwin Street.

Baldwin Street is the highest residential street in the world, so immediately you feel compelled to climb, similar the the cliff that I jumped off, just in case anyone has forgotten, it is the highest cliff jump in the world :) I was informed by the lady at the cadburys factory that it was too far to walk to, so you know what that means, me being a bit stubborn and refusing to pay for transport, iPod in and off I go on a route march and it turns out to be about an hrs walk there, which wouldn't have been a problem if the brewery tour hadn't been in 2 hrs and on the other side of town. Anyway a bit of logical thinking (for once) and a quick phone call later ( in the days whilst I had credit) the brewery tour is moved till 6pm. I reach Baldwin street which is indeed pretty steep, I start the walk up and get to the top, have a little sit down and then head back down. I have now got time to head to the botanical gardens, and they are lovely. The gardens themselves are pretty hilly and covered in shrubs and trees and rockery - but naturally formed ( I think). There was also a nice river running through. Having spent about an hour wandering around in the sun I headed back to the city centre. It was soon time to be at Speight's Brewery for the tour. At this point i should say all I've had to eat is two slices of toast ( yeah the free hostel breakfast is just toast) and a shed load of chocolate.

Our incredibly enthusiastic tour guide tells us the history of brewing using the various museum statues and props. We then make our way to the actual brewery, all the old factory equipment is very impressive, the huge solid wood vats were enormous and some still in use. Having seen all the historic equipment and heard about how all the beer used to be transported in tankers rather than kegs up until the Christchurch earthquake we made our way into the new brewery facility that had been open for less than 6 weeks. A mass of shiny stainless and rather flash looking steel pipes, vats and equipment. They also do some pretty cool steam recovery processes to heat water. Then on to the most important part of the day, the beer tasting! We got to pull our own pints, which I felt quite at home doing, the perfect pint each time, the girl hasn't lost her pint pulling skills! Anyway, 4 beers later and I was beginning to feel a touch lightheaded. So off in search of food I went.

Today brings the scenic railway gorge journey - how old am I! I join the hoards of a school children and professional scenic railway travellers, beards everywhere! The weather is pretty rubbish today so probably not a bad day to sit on a train. The train makes it's rickety way out of dunedin station and heads into the hills, the train snakes it's way past rivers and hills full of gorse with yellow flowers and silver trees that have orange tips, quite unusual but very pretty, especially with the sun glimpsing through the branches. The train goes through a number of tunnels, we having viewing platforms at the end of each carriage so hopefully my photos will do it justice. The journey to the end of the line is 2hrs then we head back. The scenery is stunning on the way back as the sun has finally made an appearance. Rather than try and take anymore photos I sit back enjoy the views listening to the editors and Florence and the machine on the way back, fab music and a fab view -sweet as! I get black to dunedin and decide its time for a proper dinner, I end up in a pub next to the fire, tummy full of risotto and beer, they then have a guy singing and playing acoustic guitar, I was leaving the pub prior to this, but I do love a bit of live music, so two large glasses of red later and a completed blog I left the pub a touch wobbly and was really looking forward to get on the bus nice and early the next day!

Today I boarded the smaller version of the big green bus, the small green bus to head to Invercargill via the Catlins coast, a spectacular coastline full of wildlife of sandy beaches. Having made new bus friends and having had a massive toasty we were on route to the furthest south you can get, unfortunately my handwriting in my journal is so bad I can't read the name of the place! I'll look it up later. We went to the lighthouse and we're met with a formation of rocks off the headland, very beautiful and similar to Devon. From here we went I search of sealions and found three of them, they were enormous and very noisy, not sure they are keen on backpackers! We then moved on to visit some more waterfalls - Purkaunui falls which provided a few different levels of fall. From here we visited the viewpoint of a beach with was stunning. Next stop was McLean falls ( kiwi experience does love a waterfall) which were very impressive. Next stop was to spot the worlds rarest penguin, and I only flipping well found one! Well done me! We watch as he or she made it's way out of the water and hoped across the rocks - very cool! Apparently we were very lucky to see one. Form here we continued to Invercargill, we arrived in the dark so literally only saw Dominoes, watched a film and went to sleep in THE worlds coldest hostel!

We left at 7:30am to meet the big green bus in the middle of nowhere to rejoin the rest of the youngsters on the kiwi experience for the Milford explorer trip. The bus was rammed, no 2 seats for me today, but it was warm thank goodness! Today we have a bus driver called mange, who was absolutely hilarious, although I think his humour may have been slightly lost on the kids on the bus, I personally found him pretty bloody funny, and yay, I wasn't the only 30 something on the bus thanks to the presence of the bus driver! The drive to MilfordSound was like driving though narnia, we went through mountains, past rivers and the trees had icicles hanging from them, absolutely beautiful. We then drove through a tunnel which went through a mountain, all accompanied by the mission impossible theme track - a bit cheesy but quite amusing. The mirror lakes were something else, the reflection of the mountain was something else! The drive was the most stunning we have been on so far and that's saying something. We then went to visit the chasm which was a waterfall which finished up in..........wait for it.......a chasm!

Then on to the main event, Milford Sound. We board the boat and set off, sailing through the sound was fab, the views and cliff faces stunning, and the waterfalls were great, the photos will hopefully show what I mean. And everyone got soaked by the waterfall haha! The weather was perfect, the sun reflecting off the water and highlighting the coastline - just fab! After a 12 hr day, we arrived back in queenstown :). Just enough time for a quick shower, the obligatory fergpie and then off to meet the boys in the pub !

Sweet as!

Lou xx