After exploring the Milford Sound (or as much of it as we could make out through the rain), we headed east to the coast, first stopping in Dunedin.  Dunedin is the main college town in NZ and surprisingly was once the biggest city.  It has a distinctive Scottish feel, most evident by the fact that we had a hard time understanding people when they spoke.

Our first stop upon arriving in town was the Speight’s brewery tour.  The first NZ beer we tasted - during our layover in Auckland - was Speight’s “Pride of the South” and we were excited to take a tour.  It was, hands down, the best brewery tour we have ever been on, and the dark beer flavored ice cream we got after tasting didn’t hurt either.  After the tour we explored the city before landing at an Irish pub for the rest of the evening, failing miserably - but having fun - at a pub quiz and drinking lots of Guiness.

The next morning we woke early and hit the road for our longest day of driving.  We headed up the coast, stopping in Moeraki to see the famous boulders and then up to Amarau.  There was an amazing little organic co-op just south of Amarau and the Whitestone cheeserie in town.  We visited the blue and yellow eyed penguin colonies (though we saw neither given they come out at night) and Graham did a Whiskey tasting.  We wished we had longer to stay, but got back in the car and drove inland to Mt Cook.

Sadly we didn’t have time to do any hiking near Mt Cook (the tallest mountain in NZ) but we did catch some amazing scenery and were able to learn a lot at the DOC-operated visitor center.  Once that closed for the evening, we continued on our way to the amazingly gorgeous turqouise colored Lake Tekapo.  We watched an amazing sunset (which doesn’t happen here until 10pm) and then woke up the next morning to hike up to the observatory.

From Lake Tekapo, I took my first turn at driving on the “wrong” side of the road and got us back east to Rangatita where we stopped to buy some NZ goods at the highly recommended Tin Shed.  From there Graham took over, drove us into Christchurch for some grocery shopping and then through the windy road leading us to the tip of the Banks Peninsula where we stayed a night at a farm-hostel in Akaroa.

When we arrived, it was pouring rain, but shortly after finishing dinner and a game of Scrabble, the sky cleared and by the time the sun set and the stars appeared, we had the stunning view we had hoped for when we first reserved our stargazer for the night.  We got up early the next morning, ate our oatmeal and took off on the most difficult and spectacular hike we’d done yet - along the ridge line leading to amazing views of Pegasus Bay and the entire peninsula…

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