Another busy week of driving sight-seeing and lack-of-sleep b
egan with the drive south to Invercargill, home of the legendary Burt Munroe “The World’s Fastest Indian” (see the movie starring Anthony Hopkins). A stop at the Southlands Museum is well worth the FREE admission….an exhibition on flags past and present of NZ (why don’t Oz & NZ get rid of Union Jack from their flags? They’re independent countries now!), Burt Monroe exhibit and also the Tuatara…… a lizard-like creature that has survived from the Jurassic period (Pic 1 – sculpture, not allowed to photograph real ones!), extinct everywhere else in the world!
A drive to Dunedin along the southern Catlins Coastal route followed, via The Bluff (most southerly point of South 
Island – Pic 2 “Where shall I go?”), Niagra Falls (Pic 3), Nugget Point (Pic 4). 
Dunedin is another Scottish name (Scottish for Edinburgh
I believe) and is home to one of my favourite places on earth….CADBURY’S WORLD!! (Pic 5). It also has a lovely Grand Railway Station, cathedrals and steep hills – one of which led to our HOGWARTZ hostel (sadly the owners love the HP books) and another is actually the World’s Steepest Street, Baldwin Street (Pic 6) – I managed to run ¼ of the way up it, quite proud of that achievement!Fr
om Dunedin we drove up the east coast, stopping at the Moeraki Boulders (Pic 7 – boulders formed over 4 million years along coast), inland to Mt Cook (Pic 8) 
with Lake Pukaki neighbouring it, beautiful mountains/snow/ice (Pic 9)to se
e (It was v.cloudy but God parted the clouds for 3o seconds for us to photograph top of Mt Cook!), Lake Tekapo and more. Christchurch was our destination, we’d now kind of circled the lower half of the south island so spent 3 days
chilling & sightseeing - I particularly enjoyed the Antarctic Centre (Pic 10) before heading North to Kaikoura, via Hanmer Springs (2 hrs in hot spa-pools of 30-40 degrees!), for a Whale-watching Tour. This was excellent but for me seeing 2 whales surface was outdone by the journey back crossing a pod of 600 Dusky Dolphins! (Pic 11).
4 comments:
Oz and NZ are parts of the commonwealth and as such the Queen is head of that Country so they can have The United Flag of Great Britain within thier flag, it isn't called the Union Jack!!!! its only called that when it is flown on the jack staff of a boat...so there!!!
That's from Captain Jack Sparrow! Wonder what it's called on the Robber Button!
Timelord says its called teh Union Jock, ha ha!
Great photos! Good to see you blogging again, albeit breathlessly!!
Should have said, Its called the Union Jock in Scotland!!
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