On Friday (Jan 28) I made my way south down to Dunedin. They call Dunedin the "Edinburgh of the south" because it's quite the scottish town. It's even laid out the same as one scottish town (oops, I forgot which one) with the streets, ect. Because of this plan they even inadvertantly have the steepest street in the world on Baldwin St.

In Dunedin I met up with some friends of two people I stayed with in Munich through GlobalFreeloaders. Sylia and Glenn put me up more than once while I passed through Munich last year. Glenn is from NZ and told some his friends to email me since I was traveling around here. Marcus and Tania Brown did just that.

The Browns have been great! I immediately felt at home almost instantly upon arriving. I can see why they're such good friends of Glenn and Sylvie. We had a picnic on the beach while we watched seals swimming along the shore, went to not one but two of their friends' BBQs, played a round of golf at one of the 11 golf courses within a ten-mile radius (EVERY town in New Zealand has at least one golf course), and more than a few games of chess. We even went out to watch the penguins come in from the sea one evening (who even knew penguins lived in New Zealand???) I had such a good time last weekend that I popped back in for the weekend to watch the Superbowl (yeah, Patriots!).

This last week I've spent my time at Wairuna Farm. Shaun and Pia run an organic farm in the small town of Clinton (interesting tidbit: Clinton is just down the road from the town of Gore - they call the road between the two the "Presidential Highway") and they inlist the help of travelers through HelpExchange. I stopped by for a few days to help out in exchange for food, accomodation, and loads of good times. I really enjoyed my time there so much that I'll be going back tomorrow for the rest of the week.

That's enough for today. Sorry to run everything together. I'm just glad to be caught up! I won't have email or internet access for the rest of the week so I'll write again when I can!

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Posted February 6, 2005 10:24 PM @ (GMT - 6)