Otago-Southland

I'm just going to give a random selection of photos from the last few days. 

 

I stayed in a lovely campground just north of Hampden- Riverside- and I had my tent near this stream.

En route for Dunedin I stumbled on this rest spot by the beach where I had my breakfast.

 In the city itself I really enjoyed the Settlers Museum, then I had a great lunch of braised steak at Speight's Alehouse. 

 

I took this photo after lunch once some sun had appeared: it looked much better than an earlier version with grey skies!

 

Dunedin Railway Station is justifiably famous- great to see it with some sunshine too. 

The other place I loved visiting was the Botanical Gardens. These cacti were in the winter gardens.

 The promised southerly came through while I was at the gardens and again it was bitterly cold. I decided to try a holiday park away from the coast and was glad to find it was more sheltered, with lovely gardens including many roses. I woke up there this morning to a most beautiful chorus of bellbirds. 

Today the main thing on my agenda, despite the rain and cold, was that I had to see Bluff, and it certainly had some surprises in store. For a start I learned from an info board that the rock there was very hard, made from magma that did not reach the surface, off the coast of Gondwanaland well before Zealandia rafted off across the Tasman.

  The views from the top of the Bluff Hill were stunning.