29.SEPTEMBER.2007

What could have been picturesque was missed partly because it was 6am and also I hadn’t realized the path to the lighthouse was right by our van and not up the gravel path which LED TO NO WHERE. A bit disappointing but once I found the path to the Nugget Point lighthouse we managed to take in the windy views as the sun rose. Plus on the walk back to the van I saw some baby seals playing at the bottom of the cliff. How sweet there cute little barking sounds are in the morning.

Drove on to Dunedin and found a laundry matte pronto so we wouldn’t be smelly kids that live in a van. Went out to Otago Peninsula, which is home to the great Albatross bird (one of the largest birds in the world with a wing span of around 3 meters) and one of the only Albatross Colonies found on an inhabited mainland. Too bad you had to pay to get a tour just to see the dang birds. Way to rip off the tourists. Us being the cheap Americans we are, we aimed to walk around the cliff path and see some native birds for free.

After that non-existent bird fun we scurried over to the Speight’s Brewery for a much needed tour. Had some time before the tour, so I ran over to catch the Laurence Aberhart show at the Dunedin Art Gallery. I was stupidly excited to finally see it, considering I had missed it when our photography class was told the wrong dates for the show in Wellington. But luck will have had it; I got to see some amazing black and white photographs from New Zealand’s own.
As for the beer fest tour, a 90-minute long tour that included a lovely go round by a hilarious Irish lad and some obvious beer tasting at the end. Jeremiah ended up making friends with two guys from Syracuse University during the tour. We were all sitting in our van outside the brewery with the intention of possibly meeting up with the two guys later. Twenty minutes or so pass and they come back and say, “Hey we found a place for you to park your van tonight.” They were in the same boat as us and weren’t sure where we would stay for the night, and us all being cheap, we were desperate. They had driven down to the college part of town and asked some people outside a house that responded with, “OH well you can just park it right out front in our driveway.” That said, we drove our van over to the house and bonded with the local college kids. A good night that ended in Jessica, Duga, and I having a food fest and falling asleep to Nacho Libre for the tenth time.










Mr. Speights himself..well as a wax person..