Dunedin to Cromwell

Dunedin is quite the quaint little city. Very hilly, several colleges provide an energy not seen to date on the south island. Very old limestone and sandstone Victorian era buildings join modern glass and steel. Cadbury chocolate world is a major attraction. We just HAD to do that, since we've all had the Hershey experience many times. they have a real factory tour, with a fun tour guide who gives out mini chocolates for answering trivia questions. We all had a nice goody bag when we finished the tour, but it also started raining quite hard, so we drove the camper van towards the botanical gardens, but it was pouring, and we didn't even get out. Decided to find the campground uptown, buy some groceries, and see what happened. There was a cool cliff-and-seaside hike we wanted to do, but it was still raining, and cold, so we went to the movies instead. Saw the new Narnia movie.VERY cool.

We arrived pretty lte and it was raining, so we were surprised to see the wonderful view from our campsite! Ducks and all!

Our first stop of the morning was to see the boulders

I stepped up from ankle-deep, shallow water to tand on this one.

but stepped down into a slightly different spot which was waist-deep. I got wet.

Some of the boulders are broken open and you can see the unique crystalline structure inside.

A pub called MASH, on the Octagon, was out lunch spot.

It was drizzling, but there was a Christmas craft bazaar in the center of the city.

The Train Station

Cadbury Chocolate World

Today we leave Dunedin (the iconic train station shown below) and head back towards the interior, hopefully escaping the rain predicted here along the coast for today. We'll aim to arrive at Te Anau in time for the lake boat cruise to the caves where you can see the glow worms hanging from the ceilings. then we're hoping to make it as far as Cromwell in the afternoon, where we'll find another campground. We're headed for the west coast, where we'll drive north towards the ferry crossing by the end of the week.