Meet Eric

This is Eric. He is currently sleeping about 200m away from where we are camping. Apparently he has some friends who are penguins who will be joining him at dusk.

In case you’re getting too jealous, it is raining. It does that a lot here.

But to head back to where we last left you, we have a lot to update you with.  We did go and see the Moeraki boulders which are a really bizarre geological thing. Here are some pictures.

The archeological remains of events a long
time ago in a galaxy far, far away

We didn’t stay there long, as there’s not a lot else to do around spherically shaped rocks, so we jumped on our trusty steed and headed further south to Dunedin.  On the way to our lovely edge of town campsite we climbed Mount Cargill, which is the mountain that dominates the skyline of Dunedin, hoping to see some wonderful views. 

We have since learnt that it is known as Cloud Mountain, and is so often in cloud the plants on it have adapted to those conditions. Nice walk though. And there is another bizarre rock formation known as the organ pipes half way up. Here is a picture of the organ pipes.

After mooching about in Dunedin town centre (very nice) and a lovely meal we took the opportunity to watch The Hobbit : The Desolation of Smaug.  We think it was good, but with the 3d it was hard to tell what was actually going on.

Yesterday we went on an epic cycle ride! We did the south bit of the Central Otago Rail Trail. The weather was warm, sunny and windy. The landscape was increasingly spectacular as we went along and felt a bit like cycling through Rohan. Which turned out to be almost the case, we were one mountain range over.

We’d started late, finished late, grabbed some food, slept for a bit then went for a Sea Kayak out in the Dunedin bay where we saw seals (furry rocks) and a small blue penguin (official name).  And cormorants.  So that was a wonderful but very tiring 24 hours! After lunch we’ve headed even further south to this lovely bay just inside the Caitlins national park. Tomorrow we’re intending to mooch along and see where we end up.  

If we don’t get online between now and then, Happy New Year everyone!

Word of the day: changeable

James on top of Mount Cargill.  In the summer.

One of the many viaducts on the Central Otago Rail Trail

P.S. As we were uploading the blog, this happened: