Day 274: Hanna’s Take on NZ

Dunedin – Otego Peninsula – Kaka Point, New Zealand

As Elys caught a cold and does not feel too good in the evenings, she asked me to take over writing the block for the time being. So here we go…

Once again our instincts brought us to a picture perfect morning panorama. We spent the night on a small parking area about 5 meters from the beach and nicely hidden under trees. In the morning, we drive on to Dunedin, a nice little university town set picturesquely on the hill sides of the Otago Peninsula. We pay a visit to the towns public art gallery – or rather to the shop at the public art gallery, where Elys falls in love with a fox shaped woolen scarf (at 90 $, this is not in the travel budget though) before she discovers the free WiFi and spents a happy half an hour with the world wide web…

We have a look around the city before we head out to the Otago Peninsula in search of penguins, sea lions and dolphins. The small road out of town meanders along the coast and we drive about 2 meters from the water taking in the stunning views over the bay. We find a nice little spot behind a rock on the waters edge where we have lunch before we drive on over gravel roads crossing the peninsula to Sand Fly Beach. We have to park high above the beach and to actual get to the beach, we decent over the wind swept sand dunes trying not to get blown away ourselves by the wind. On the beach we almost stumble over a sea lion sleeping in the sand and nicely camouflaged with sand and sea weed. We see three more sea lions, two of them young ones and one waking up and shaking his head at the spectators before hobbling to the sea and vanishing in the waves.

Back in the car – only slightly out of breath after climbing the dune – we head back to Dunedin and further south for our first night on an actual campground where we happily shower for about half an hour before we comfortably sleep in the van with the heating set to full power all night.