So today has not been the most exciting so far. To start with we went to the Botanic Gardens and the University.

The Botanic Gardens were beautiful and very old – started in the 1860s, about the time the town was under construction. Turns out it was an ‘acclimatisation centre’, set up to find out what plants from ‘home’ would grow in NZ.

This is a grass called red tussock. There are several varieties but this one is endangered. Do we think that it looks like some sort of alien invasion? The next series of Dr Who maybe?

Then we went to the university to see more Scottish Baronial stuff. Exciting because the emergency services were having a practice – woman screaming, body on the ground, hunky firemen, all that.

After that we left Dunedin and travelled to where we are now – Omarama. This is nothing more than a couple of motels and petrol stations on the road to Christchurch. There are several other coachloads of people here including, I think, the French group we have bumped into at least 4 times. I am now greeting the man I met on Anchorage Beach as an old and valued friend.

On the way we stopped for the Moeraki Boulders – strange spherical rock formations on a beach.

We also stopped in a town called Oamaru for lunch. This was a very rich port until the 1970s and, like Liverpool or Bristol, it built accordingly. It has an opera house, an Atheneum and a (still functioning) race course. And penguins. The old buildings are now full of art galleries, cafes, second hand bookshelves and the like and it appears to be some sort of steampunk headquarters. This one is for Tai!