Dunedin and Mt. Cook National Park

After our restful week in Queenstown we headed east to Dunedin. This is the train station, the second most photographed building in the southern hemisphere. Besides looking at the unique Scottish architecture there are two very important things to do here.

The first one is The Cadbury Tour. Unfortunately because of the summer holidays the factory wasn't producing chocolate. But we did get to see one ton of chocolate drop just because and taste freshly warmed chocolate. Yum!

The second one is to tour the Speight's Brewery. This brewery was founded in 1876 and is the south's top brewery. It's the drinking choice for every "Southern Man". This is John's new "southern man" coozie. Now all he needs is a Speight's Gold Medal Ale to go with it!

It just so happened that we visited this brewery on a very special day. John's 27 birthday! Happy Birthday John! Our new UK friend Mark helped us celebrate.

On our way up the coast we found a Yellow Eyed Penguin colony. Their chicks are about 8 weeks old, so the adults spend all day at sea fishing. In the evening they come to shore to feed their chicks. We watched them come into shore from fishing out at sea all day. This is two of them greeting each other.

Here are four of them discussing their eventful days out at sea.

The Moeraki Boulders are giant spherical rocks formed by a gradual buildup of minerals around a central core.

Does John look like he is being hatched out of the boulder? :)

Later that evening we got to see a Blue Penguin colony. These penguins come to feed their young about an hour after the sun has set. Just when it is too dark to get a good photo. They get blinded by the camera flash. So pretend this is a Blue Penguin crossing the road.

We then ventured inland to the other side of the great Southern Alps. We camped a very chilly night nearby the base of Mt. Cook and Mt. Sefton in Mt. Cook National Park. We awoke to a beautiful day with fresh snow on the peaks!

The tall pointy one with the fresh snow is Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 3754 meters.

Black Betty is enjoying the view.

We did an amazing hike up the Mueller Hut track. Yes, that tiny path curving around the side of the mountain is the "trail".

Looking down the Hooker Valley from Sealy Point.

Looking up the Hooker Valley at Sealy Point. The lake in the background is coming from the Hooker Glacier. That dirty patch of what looks like snow just beyond the lake is the Hooker Glacier.

Us at Sealy Point. The lake in the foreground is coming from the Mueller Glacier. The dirty patch of what looks like snow to the left of us is the Mueller Glacier.

A storm rolled in just as we made it to the ridge. Of course it started snowing!

We made it!

We made a snowman on the way down. It would have been bigger, but it started snowing harder. So our responsible selves decided it was better to get off the ridge rather than play in the snow.

The storm cleared later that evening and we got to see Mt. Sefton with the fresh snow. Beautiful!