Dunedin & Lake Tekapo

Moeraki boulders

The journey from Queenstown to Dunedin was a quick one and we arrived it Dunedin quite early which made a pleasant change as it meant we got some time to look round the town. Dunedin is the Edinborough of the South hemisphere and is where all the Scots lived when the British came over. It is th emost British looking town I have seen yet and did have quite a Scottish feel about it. It also had token Scottish gift shops selling tartan souvenirs. We did some washing in the hostel then went to the supermarket and bought some falafel for lunch the next day. Then we went to look around the town. Apparently its a big student city and is a lot more busy outside of the Christmas holidays but when we were there it was very quiet and not much to write home about.

The next day we headed off to lake Tekapo with a bus full of new people and a new driver. The bus stopped briefly before we left Dunedin, and let us off to walk up the world's officially steepest street. The bus also stopped at the Moeraki Boulders which are a natural wonder of New Zealand – round stones that have been formed over millions of years under the sea.

Steepest street

After this we continued on, stopping only for lunch (lovely falafel pitta sandwiches) and we stopped a few times at photo opportunities around the area such as at big hydroelectric dams (NZ uses *0% renewable energy) and we also stopped at the church of the good sheppard. Then we got dropped off at our hostel which was a lovely lakeside lodge and there was only 4 of us in our room (us and 2 Germans). The driver had organised a BBQ so we all paid £5 and he went and bought a load of stuff from the supermarket. Two people volunteered to make salads and he cooked all the meat. Whilst we were waiting for it to cook, we went for a walk in the forest next to the lake and Jemma went for a swim in the freezing lake with a Malaysian girl. We then had an extremely delicious BBQ with everyone off the bus and it was a lovely bonding experience. I brought out my box of wine from Queenstown and we also had L & P (New Zealand's famous drink, only famous in NZ).

View of Mount Cook

After the BBQ I was really tired because of the wine and had a lovely early night. Jemma decided to go for a walk in the woods and look at the stars with the Malaysian girl (Lake Tekapo is one of the best places in the world to look at the stars and there was a full moon. There is an observatory you can go too with telescopes but it cost £50 to go so we gave it a miss).

View of lake Tekapo from hostel bedroom

Group BBQ