Trip to the South Island Dunedin to Nelson

Dunedin was wonderful. We had a tough first night because the room we stayed in at the backpackers in town smelt of mildew and the mattress on the bed had spronged its springs. The next morning Glenn and I got up early, no reason to stay in bed, and went out for a walk through the city. The feel of the city was European with cool old buildings. Like the one in the picture. This is the train station located in the center of town. A pretty fancy place much nicer then most airports.



We then returned to the backpackers to check out. As we were checking out our friend Louise called. Louise was down visiting Dunedin for the holidays and she wanted to see if she could show us arround Dunedin. She met up with us at the Backpackers and took us to the Botanical Gardens a very nice spot to have lunch. We also got to meet her brother, a painter, who lived above a music shop in town. She even took us out to one of the beaches it was a very nice day and we enjoyed taking a walk. Louise had to get back to visit her mom so she left us at a Holiday park were we would stay the night in a little cabin that smelled great and had a good mattress on the bed. There was even a nice trail into the woods that surrounded the park. We took a walk that afternoon. Then for dinner we were invited to a potluck out at Mike's place. Mike is one of the main guys that organizes the Festival and he told us this potluck was a traditional pre-festival festivity. We ended up walking to Mike's place which took about two hours but was a good walk none the less. We even got to meet some of the local fisherman as we had to stop for directions at a local bar. After getting a criptic map that looked somewhat like a treasure map we continued on our way. Luckly we passed another couple on the road we asked for more clarification. Once we made it to Mike's the feast was on the table. We were pretty worn out by this time and hungary but we enjoyed the company and meeting new people. There we met Geoff and Lois who told us to come and stay with them. We told them we had a place for that night so they gave us a number to call the next day so they could come and pick us up when ever we wanted. Once we got back to the holiday park that night we remembered the guy at the desk had told us earlier there were glow worms along a path into the woods just five minutes walk. We decided to go take a look. It was amazing the cliff was just lit up with glow worms. What a great way to finish off our first full day in the South Island.