It is 44 degrees right now. With the windchill factor, make that 36. As much as I hate the sticky Baltimore heat, I could use a little bit right about now. I had grand plans to go see one of the film festival movies tonight, but to be perfectly honest, my sweats and slippers called, and I answered, "yes." Meanwhile, Brad and two of our housemates are at a rugby game probably freezing their tails off. I considered becoming an indignant feminist when Rich asked Brad and Craig, "Do you two wanna go to the rugby match for a guys day out? I have 3 tickets." But then I remembered that I know nothing about rugby. Because I'm a girl. (Kidding!)
Yesterday however was a much nicer day and Brad and I decided to get out of the city and head out to the peninsula. Dunedin is located at the base of the peninsula, so it's just a short bus ride out on a coastal (very coastal, like I-sure-hope-the-bus-driver-is-paying-attention coastal) road. Ideally you would drive your own car so that you can stop in all of the cute little seaside villages, as well as keep your eyes peeled for seals, albatros, and if you're quiet and patient enough, yellow eyed penguins, the rarest in the world. Brad and I want to rent a car when it gets warmer and make an overnight out of it, but we thought it would be fun to visit the village of Portobello for a day trip since, like I said, the bus goes directly there.
I'm not exactly sure how I got it into my ever-hopeful peabrain that Portobello would be full of things to do. Maybe it the cute name. However there was kind of a whole lot of nothing. We got off the bus and watched a few tumbleweeds blow by before seeing a sign for the aquarium, 1.8 kms up the road. Come on feet! One of the things I love about New Zealand is that even if the things you planned to do turn out to be a bust, you still have the most beautiful scenery, and just a simple walk makes the trip worth your while.
 |
| View of Dunedin from the peninsula |
 |
| One of many bird sightings |
 |
| Portobello: bustling metropolis |
 |
| "There's no fence... the sheep can just walk on the road Brad!" I needed this demonstration to understand what a cattle grate was. |
 |
| So cute! I think they could just roll over the cattle grate if they were clever enough. |
 |
| I wasn't laughing so much at this photo idea, but at Brad trying to get the sheep to look up by going, "CLOODLE OOODLE LOOO!" much like a certain character in "True Grit" :) |
About 30 minutes later, we arrived at the aquarium/marine study center. While I liked that it was very research-oriented (you could see Uni students actively working), I have been severely spoiled by the Batimore Aquarium. The coolest thing I saw was a 6-foot long blue eel, but I really wanted to see their resident octopus who hid on me. How inconsiderate of him! And before we knew it, we had seen everything in the aquarium. Wah-wah.
 |
| If you're seeing this, consider yourself lucky because I have a feeling foamy is going to ask me to take it down soon. |
 |
| The 6-foot blue eel is right along the wall... click to enlarge. |
 |
| Small sand shark |
 |
| seahorse |
 |
| shark nursery |
Like I said, pretty much anywhere in NZ is beautiful, so there's really no such things as a bad day trip, but this was pretty close. The main highlight was feeding my apple core to a horse instead of carrying it to a trash can. Unless we wanted to wait another 4 hours for the next bus back to the city, we had to catch the one waiting when we got back from the aquarium so we didn't get to go out to eat or anything, but we did get a Cookie Time afghan chocolate chunk cookie- it's hard to explain, but I'm pretty sure their made in Heaven. 20 grams of saturated fat never tasted so good!
We hit the grocery store to buy some veggies (an effort to make up for the cookies) and I nearly forgot all about the lame aquarium until I saw this:
That toilet sign is hi-larious! Love it.
ReplyDelete