Just photos!

 *I think you can double-click on any photo to see it better - i.e. the yellow eyes on the penguin!                   

My "tatoos" from the gagillion sandflies at Sandfly Point at the end of the Milford Walk. Both arms looked like this and this photo was taken a week after I finished the track!

Baldwin St. in Dunedin, the steepest street in the world says Guinness World Records book. I didn't attempt it because it was raining and I had missed a curb and taken a nosedive on the way to the bus that morning with my full backpack on and skinned/bruised a few parts of my body already! Photo 2 is of the railroad station in Dunedin (Dun- NEE-din) - typical of the ornate architecture in that hilly, Scottish settled university town.

In Tekapo (TEE-ka-po), the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, the most photographed church in NZ! Pic 1 is looking through the window over the altar inside the church and 2 shows the beautiful glacial water lake that it sits by. The purple, pink and white flowers are 'Connie' lupins named after the farmer's wife who sowed them all along the highways from Dunedin to Tekapo. They smell wonderful!

At the albatross center (the only one in the world)  and breeding place on the Otago Peninsula, just outside Dunedin. I took the ELM Wildlife Tour - what a fabulous night of viewing! Pic 2 of flying albatross - they glide, not fly. The parents care for their one youngster for 11 months here taking turns bringing 'seafood' back to it. Wingspan can be 9 ft.
Photo 3 - the tour group heading down,down, down to the first beach (which we repeated on the second beach- and - of course included the up,up,up!). Pic 4 - a yellow-eyed penguin with arms outstreched to cool itself off. Pic 5 - blue penguin parent outside its nest. Look closely and you'll see the fluffy baby inside. Pic 6 -the closed circuit TV of the same nest ELM set up to get a good view of the three week old babies. They were trying to walk and kept falling over! Pic 7 - yellow-eyed penguin heading out to sea

Pic 8 - Sea lions on the second beach. The view would go all the way south to Antarctica if you could see that far. From the first beach, the view would go all the way east to Chile. We also saw NZ fur seals, but they camouflaged too well on the rocks for me to get a good pic.I f the closed circuit TV weren't National Geographic- like enough, the company also had blinds set up for better close viewing - AND - one of the sea lions had just given birth and two seagulls were fighting over the rich red placenta! Yikes!

Next photos: The hike with some of the German 'kids' up to Mt. John, an observatory near Lake Tekapo. We had eautiful glacial water views all day long! Last photo: One of the many goofy Kiwi vans you see on the road! They love to RV here!