Yet again a wet night, but woke up to clear sunny skies. We headed out to the Otago peninsular on a flat road that followed the coast around. In many places we had seen signs for Cow Poo, or Horse Manure for sale. Here it was more direct with a sign outside the farm Sheep Shit for Sale!
Along the route were more painted bus shelters, seems to be a Kiwi thing. This one had a picture of an Albatross and her chick.
Bus Shelter
At the end of the peninsular we climbed up to around 250 metres to the headland. Here was an Albatross Research Centre. Here we saw, and heard, a gazillion nesting seagulls, as well as a number of spotted shags (similar to a cormorant).
Seagulls
Looking down from the cliffs we saw a single seal playing around in the water and a couple of Albatross as well as long tentacles of seaweed.
Seaweed
Today was not the warmest of days, and together with a strong wind, it was numbingly cold up on the exposed headland. We drove back across the peninsular remaining high up for a while, giving a good view back into Dunedin.
Dunedin
Unfortunately the clear weather deserted us and the rain set in so we headed back to the motel for lunch. After lunch the weather looked more promising so we headed out again to take in some of the sites od the city. First on the list was the Railway Station built in 1903, unfortunately it started to rain / sleet / hail as we got out of the car.
Dunedin Station
The lobby floor is made up from over 700,000 small Royal Dalton tiles.
Station Floor
As the rain did not let up we did a driving tour around the Octagon (centre of the city) and past the Cadbury factory, the tower of chocolate should last us a couple of weeks.
Mmmmm
Next stop was north of the city at signal hill. As we climbed up through 250 metres we saw white stuff coming out of the clouds, SNOW! by the time we got to the hill it was snowing pretty heavily, and the temperature was down to 2c, I am sure we didn’t sign up for this.
Back down the hill to to visit the worlds steepest street, Baldwin Street. The street is a little under 350 metres (1,150 ft) long rising from 30 m (98 ft) above sea level100 m (330 ft) above sea level at the top. At its maximum, the slope of Baldwin Street is about 1:2.86 (19° or 35%). That is, for every 2.86 metres travelled horizontally, the elevation changes by 1 metre. The steepest part of the street is constructed from concrete as tarmac would melt and run down the street in the summer.
Looking Up Baldwin Street
View From the Passenger Seat – Going Down
Despite the bad weather we still saw a lot of the city, and in reality it is only the second day of rain in over 2 weeks.