I left the Queenstown YHA early in the morning and packed my stuff in the dark while the 7 boys in my room slept-talked and burped and snored. It didn't get light until well after 8.00, and the full moon that I had watched rise the night before was still high in the sky. The bus journey to Dunedin (pronounced "done-ee-din" after the Scottish word for Edinburgh) was about four and a half hours, through rolling hills and field after field of sheep (or as my Spanish friend Amaia used to say, "ships" - so sweet!). The sheep here are all bulky with wool and sometimes stare as the bus goes past or run off, perhaps because there is so little traffic here - or because they're not the brightest of creatures? We stopped at a cafe in a little town called Lawrence and I found a small museum. I didn't actually end up seeing any of the exhibits as I got talking to the lady at the desk who was from Scotland originally and had lived all around the world. She had been living in the town for 13 years and was still regarded as somewhat of a 'newcomer.'

I met a couple of Irish girls, Brenda and Anne, and we ended up staying at a hostel overlooking the city on a steep hill. It was a beautiful, though chilly, day and I took the hostel owners' dog, Sebastian, on a very long walk through the centre of town - called the Octagon' - and up to the Botanic Gardens, then down through the town belt. It was all up and down hills and there were some great views.

The next day we went on a fantastic wildlife tour of the Otago Peninsula and saw shags and a Royal Northern Albatross at its breeding ground. At the centre there, you could watch a large fluffy chick (this picture shows just how massive these things are) sitting on a nest waiting for its parents to come back on a live TV feed. We drove around tidal inlets and saw a kingfisher and oystercatchers, then onto a farm, where we parked and walked down to a remote beach. The farmer has a special agreement with the people who run the eco-tour whereby they pay him and are able to use part of his land for research and taking small groups to look at wildlife. There were lots of sea lions lounging around on the sand, fighting occasionally, and a couple came galloping straight towards us when they saw a female behind us (the females are white and very rare in this particular colony. They were harrassed no end, poor things). They're pretty hefty things but can move at a cracking pace when they feel like it. We went to a couple of hides (felt like a proper twitcher! I had a geeky packed lunch, binoculars and anorak and everything!) and watched the endangered yellow-eyed penguins emerging from the sea and cooling off by standing still with their wings held out. Their feet turn pink when they're hot in the same way that humans' faces do. We saw a blue penguin in its burrow and then walked down some hills to a rocky outcrop where there was a colony of New Zealand fur seals. We left as the sun was setting behind the hills, and drove back to the city.

On my last day in Dunedin, I visited the Art Gallery and the Museum of Otago (couldn't go more than a few days without my museum fix). There was an interesting exhibition on birds and a stuffed albatross, which brought home how huge they are. Not as big, however, as the moas, which were up to 3 metres tall before they were hunted to extinction by the Maori people around five hundred years ago. There are huge efforts underway in New Zealand to prevent the flightless kiwis and kakapos from meeting the same fate. I met a guy who had volunteered to help the kakapos on Stewart Island. Since there are only 85 left in the wild apparently, the birds are fed every day to try and build them up to breeding weight, so that the males can climb up the hills and boom to the females. At the Art Gallery, there was a talk by an artist called Robin White, whose paintings and prints I really admired, but wasn't so impressed by what she had to say.

I leave Dunedin tomorrow - I liked it a lot here - and am off to Te Anau. I was originally planning to head to Invercargill, but was told by a couple of people that it's not worth it, and a German bloke described it as "slowly dying," so I reckon I'll give that one a miss...