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- Bagikan
- Hari 21–25
- 10 Oktober 2025 - 14 Oktober 2025
- 4 malam
- ☁️ 20 °C
- Ketinggian: 15 mi
Selandia BaruŌamaru45°5’48” S 170°58’17” E
Dunedin and Ōamaru

After we hopped off the boat in Milford Harbour we did a coast to coast drive, ending up in the south-east, in Dunedin.
And what a nice, neat city it is! A good selection of historic buildings, including the iconic Dunedin Railway Station, a semi-pedestrianised city centre with shops of every persuasion and a lively drinking sector near the beautiful Regent Theatre on the Octagon.
But before all that, we visited an albatross.
We took a long, slow drive around the north coast of the Otago Peninsula, hugging the coast the whole way and passing through numerous tiny villages until we reached the Royal Albatross Centre. That’s “royal” as in a northern royal albatross, not “Royal”, as in some kind of kingly or queenly patronage.
Unfortunately, the albatrosses were either shy or, more likely, not back from their two year sojourn on the southern ocean winds, as we only saw one.
They are an incredible creature, mating for life, heading off separately for two years, flying thousands of kilometres (sometimes a thousand kilometres in a single day) and then when the time comes to get together to mate again, landing back at exactly the same spot within a few hours of each other.
It was also red-billed gull breeding season, so we were treated to numerous instances of red-billed gull fornication on the way up to the hide.
Back in Dunedin, we enjoyed the nice buildings and the aforementioned lively drinking sector, as well as the Otago Settlers Museum.
With all manner of exhibits, from the very early years, to the City Council’s old IBM computer, and a few boats, cars and trams in between, it was a great presentation of the history of the city, while also paying appropriate attention to Dunedin’s Scottish Free Church history.
Then we popped in to Karitane. Not the local baby-feeding-help clinic, but the village of Karitane, where the first such place was opened at the house of infant nutrition pioneer Sir Truby King. It was an absolutely beautiful little place.
Further north is Oamaru, where spent a few days.
Again, we kicked off with some wildlife spotting, spending a few chilly hours watching the occupants of Oamaru’s blue penguin colony make their way home after a day’s fishing. It was fascinating to watch them emerge from the water, clamber up the bank, then, on some random impulse, dash (well, waddle quickly but awkwardly) across no man’s land to the nests. Sadly, no photos were allowed of this fantastic sight.
Oamaru has some considerable former glory, having made fortunes out of gold, shipping, wool and frozen meat exports - it was the first in the world to commence this last one.
As a result of this, it has a couple of blocks of extremely well-preserved Victoria /Edwardian buildings, now repurposed into museums, arts centres and shops.
We had a look at the wonderfully fun and informal Whitestone City, a museum with all manner of hands-on artifacts.
The third arrow in Oamaru’s quiver is as a centre for steampunk. We spent a couple of very fun hours at Steampunk HQ, enjoying the interesting-to-say-the-least exhibits.
The steampunk theme was continued at our hotel, which was decorated like pretty much no other we have seen. Our room was adorned with whips and tractor seats, although I promise neither got used during our stay.
Next off, we head inland again for the final few days of our trip.Baca selengkapnya