Dunedin

And so to Dunedin, the heart of “Scottish New Zealand”. It was freshers- week when we arrived and whole place seemed to be awash with shiny new students and rather weather-beaten aged travellers like us. Our motel was fine, or as Mhairi would say “FINE!”, clean and miles from the nearest bar (or indeed source of alcohol – bless the Scottish Presbyterians). We dragged our weary bones to a bar in the Octagon, the centre of the city and, as we sat at the bar we looked around and “ticked off” most of the sites listed in our guidebook. “Ah but”, said Wendy, “there is the Chinese Garden, the only Scholar’s Garden outside China plus I have my Taoist T Shirt to wear”

So, the next morning we stopped off and it was magnificent:

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and so restful. The highlight was when we entered one of the buildings and there was a lovely old gentleman sitting playing his Erhu, the Chinese two-stringed violin. It was fairly obvious that the man was a master and the music was beautiful.

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“Now what?” asked Wendy.

“Well”, said I, “there is the Otago peninsula.”

“And?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Well, there are Albatross” I confessed. So, off we went, and the Otago Peninsula was just beautiful and worth the journey even without the Albatross.

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Now, seeing the Southern Royal Albatross is a major event, they are the largest flying bird in the world and the colony on the Otago Peninsula is the only accessible in the world. The New Zealand authorities have deemed that one should stump-up NZ$100 (£50) to see them because they are so special. I am a Scotsman, £100 to see a bird, all be it a rare big bird, I don’t think so. As we drew into the car park Wendy, honestly, looked out of the car window and said “what the f**ck is that? A hang glider?”

And there it was, all 3m of it (that’s nine feet from wing tip to wing tip). It transpires that the youngsters, out on their first flight, sometimes get a bit lost on the way back in to the nest. They must be mystified by the tourists below rubbing their hands in glee, laughing and shouting “we saved a hundred dollars”.

So, with NZ$200 in our back pockets we set off for Invercargill gleefully planning what we could spend out profit on.

It was a long, long drive, hills and twisty at first and then mile upon interminable mile of straight road across the massive glacial outwash plains. I swear we died twice before arriving at our Airbnb. The owner was on hand and we asked where the nearest supermarket was (code!) and round the corner we went. It took us half an hour of picking up, like, unimportant things like sustenance, food and soft drinks (for driving the next day) when Wendy and I looked at each other and realised in horror that there was no, NO, beer and wine. Under considerable duress and with the threat of excommunication the teller admitted that there was a bottle shop around the corner. Well, we do have NZ$200 so we might as well buy some decent wine.

Welcome to Invercargill we thought.