Last week in New Zealand

From Queenstown we left the mountains behind and made our way South to Dunedin, to the attractions of the Cadbury's chocolate factory and the chance to see some more penguins...it's become something of an obsession with which Rick is very patient, if a little concerned about what I will do when we get back to the land of no-penguins at home.

The chocolate factory was quite the tourist experience, we were led round by an enthusiastic employee who kitted us out in fetching white hats to keep us hygienic (Rick looked very fetching, although at least he didn't have to wear a beard snood!). We were walked through the process of making chocolate, with stops for DVD displays and Q & A with chocolates for correct answers...the finale was a chocolate waterfall (all very Willy Wonka), but disappointingly we found that this was not part of the mixing process but purely for the tourists!

Away from the Scottish influences of Dunedin, we made our way out to the Otago Peninsula, home to all sorts of marine life, particularly yellow-eyed penguins, and some very large sea lions. In several hours in a hide on the beach we saw just 5 of these very cute and very rare penguins messing about in the sand dunes. I was perfectly happy, and Rick bore the wait with a great deal of patience! We had the hostel on the peninsula to ourselves, which made a nice change from some of the larger hostels we'd been staying in, it was a bit like being back in our little bach in the Bay of Islands, where we started.

The hostel we stayed at in Christchurch was probably the nicest place though. Set up in a pair of old houses on the outskirts of the city, they'd been refurbished in the late '90s by a European couple who'd spent enough time in backpacker hostels to know what works and what doesn't. We thought we were going to be there for a few days to have time to explore the local area, but on a routine reconfirmation of our flights realised that we were actually leaving two days earlier than we thought....just enough time to send a parcel home to Rick's Mum (thanks Hilary!), repack our backpacks and take the car back before heading off for Oz.

The only thing we did manage was a visit to the Antarctic Centre, which left us with a taste of the South and the realisation that we've not really ever been that cold! There was still so much more to see in New Zealand, it was disppointing to leave so soon, but we reckon we'll just have to go back and make sure we get around to seeing the places we missed.