looking back... on the memories of...

So we've made it to Queenstown with my pops and as we sit and look at the beautiful surroundings, we've had some time of reflection... and we decided it's time to get you up to speed. So the last we met (or posted), we talked about our time in Dunedin... sorta. Here's a more detailed account:

Made it to Dunedin. Gorgeous city with a lot of old building and much character. Josh stopped to take a picture of every old cathedral/castle and Emilee and I told him he wasn't going to know what to do with himself if he ever made it to Europe. That said, it was Josh's favorite city so far.

We made it to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and it WASN'T like Willy Wonka... No oompa loompas or nothin... what's up with that? But it was fun because of the free samples and beard guard that Josh had to wear.


Post chocolate we made it to the Speight's Brewery Factory (at least we had our priorities straight, huh?). Very informational and pro-beer tour. I mean PRO-beer. They made us watch a 4 minute long Rocky theme-song video of someone opening and pouring a beer. You would have thought it was someone getting ready for the Olympics, but no - it was beer. What can I say - they like their beer here.


The next day we made it to the world's steepest street... move over San Fran - the true winner is in Dunedin. Go figure. We just happened to be there at the high school lunch hour and 4 boys were timing themselves to see how fast they could ride their bikes down this hill... with ONLY a helmet on. It was the MOST crazy thing I've ever seen. If only their mothers knew what they were up to! BTW - they clocked themselves at 91 kilometers per hour - that's like 55mph... on a bike... with only a helmet... down the world's steepest street. Boys.


That night we made it up to Oamaru which is know for their penguins... rare yellow eyed and the small blue. Both were really cool. We saw the yellow ones first and they come RIGHT up to you and then waddle away like old men. Super cute. The blue ones come out after the sun goes down (which here is like 9:30PM currently) and they come out in droves! They come out of the water and just walk through the city. They sleep under the buildings, in boats, in bushes, etc... so everywhere you walk you see these tiny blue penguins cruisin the streets. Unfortunately they're too hard to take pics of because their fast, you're not supposed to use a flash, and it's dark but they did have "Penguins Crossing" signs!

That was about it for Dunedin... onto the Catlins...