Dunedin: This Week

It was raining both Monday and Tuesday. The same dripping happened again from our ceiling by the chimney. Sighhhhh. Tuesday night a cyclone called Gita went straight into the top of the South Island of New Zealand. Somehow Calcifer decided that this was the best night possible to somehow escape their bedroom via the window to get outside. Around 11:30pm we were both woken up by sharp and very loud meows. At first I just thought it was cute, but after a while we were both getting more awake and wondered if it was more of a calling for attention, or help. We got to the front door to hear the loud meows coming from right outside our front door. We unlocked it and opened it only for Calcifer to run inside, completely wet! It was only upon entering the cat room that we noticed the window was opened by one of them. The rain was getting inside and drenching the windowsill. Calficer looked pleased as punch to have had his little breakout adventure, but he couldn't have chosen a worse night to do it on. Cyclone Gita was getting worse at the time and it was already atrocious weather outside. The foul storm actually arrived around 3am. Maybe that will teach him a lesson to not jump out of open windows? We wiped Calicfer down and went back to bed.

The next morning Hermione was hissing at her brother like crazy. She didn't recognise his scent at all.

Poor kitty rejected by his sister but happy to be home- the morning after his outside ordeal

On Thursday in the evening the landlords came over to deal with the roof some more. We used this opportunity to let our cats outside for the first time, seeing as we were outside anyway in the nice weather. Calcifer LOVED it, running around not sure what to do. Hermione was shy at first and just stood on the rake head for comfort I guess. But even she started exploring around in the end. They never strayed too far from our sides and each had big bushy tails to show their excitement.

23 Fri-
Pogo released a new album called Ascend. Its really good!!
I nearly got run over today when coming home from work. I was near home actually, crossing the road by a playground, when from behind me to my left, a car was driving at speed turning right and ignoring my right of way (I had pressed the button, I wasn't J walking). He jumped a light at speed and very nearly ran me down. I was livid. He stopped and parked almost instantly and ignored me when I told him to apologise to me as he greeted his family playing in the park. I went home really angry and met Sabine with the cats playing in the front garden. She told me to go back and get the number plate, so I did. I went back to this car 2 mins down the road and took a photo (below). The owner with his wife and children or whatever was just looking at me. Its annoyingly frustrating as on both occasions they just had the attitude of 'if we ignore the weird guy, he will just go away'. YOU NEARLY KILLED ME YOU TWAT!

This prick

When at home again the first thing I did was report his car online. Not that its going to help much. These bloody NZ drivers are incredibly dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. Its not like England where you get the occasional twat. Here they are everywhere. Realistically I would say 1 in 5 drivers need their license revoked.
Anyway. Sabine received our rejected NZ expression of interest package with a note saying my birth certificate is invalid. Sigh... Turns out that's two places now that think my birth certificate isn't real. I bought a new one using a courier service as we need my proper one next week. At least I'm hoping its an official birth certificate and not a copy of whatever version of it I have. An official birth certificate has the parents names on it. Until now, mine has always been just this square shaped certificate with just my name and some basic details on it.

24 Sat-
We went to a mammals workshop at 9:00am at the marine science center at Portobello, where we were last time. We saw the itinerary for the day and realised that it was not a workshop but rather a bunch of lectures. We listened to the first which was about dolphin ecology. Then we had a tea break which was nice.

After that we skipped class to go do our own thing. We actually went bird safari again up the cost to where the Monarch boat trips leave. The mammals workshop said it was going to be a boat trip using the Monarch, but the itinerary said it would be for 2pm. We hung around a nearby beach where this stupid loose dog was running around, unfortunately. He had no obvious owner. Next we hung around the jetty and saw a sea lion in the water where the boat leaves, which was playing with a big octopus, thrashing it too and fro. Then sometime later I noticed a big octopus in the water missing a lot of its tenticales. Same one? Who knows...
Two terns were also sitting on the jetty.
The group joined us and together we set off on the Monarch boat. When we set off, within minutes we came across a Blue Penguin, sitting just bobbing about on the water. At Taieri Head we saw the resident albatross sitting on their nests, and another penguin on the shoreline. Then when out to sea, a huge albatross landed next to the boat, right next to me in fact, again just sitting in the water, then 2 Hectors dolphins got interested in our boat. We also saw a petrel on this boat trip.

After that we went to Pac n Save via Allans Beach road, the long way round.
This evening I let Calcifer out the house for a run around. He was cute in that he followed us around the two gardens. Hermione has a bad paw so we cant let her out today.

25 Sun-
Today Sabine wanted to visit the kitten adoption day at the pet shop that hosted it before. I was really surprised to find that she wanted a kitten that was in Animates.
Next we went to Mitre 10 for the first time to ask regarding what we can do with our windowsills that are currently scratched really badly. We bought a roll of carpet and adhesive tape so we can hopefully put it on without the cats scratching it further.
Next we visited the butterflies again. Afterwards we each had another nice burger at Re:Burger.
The landlord guy Richard came over to replace our lock which is playing up yet again (we've always had issues with it), and he also installed some uprights on the gutter so that it doesn't dip terribly like it was (water was gushing against the side wall- kitchen side)
aaand now its raining.
aaaaaand the drip is back. Sigh......
aaaaaaaaaand after texting the landlords, they say they will call their plumber. A PLUMBER?!?! Why not a roofer?!?!?!?!?! SIGHHHHHHHHHH..................

Dunedin: Olveston, Bird safari, Chinese New Year and The Catlins

8 Thu-
Work occasionally have these day outings which I can sign up for. Today at 2:30pm I went to visit 'Olveston Historic Home' in Dunedin, along with others from work. It was interesting only because everything in there was 100% how it was in the 1920's. Nothing was faked or re-imagined to a state it could have been in, because it didn't need it. The house was left to the council from the original owner in the 1960's, who left it 100% as it was from the 1920's. Really interesting if you see it from its authenticity point of view. this goes from the furniture to silverware to wallpaper. Everything just as it was, and surprisingly kept in that time lock. Nothing looked old.

10 Sat-
We went to town to have a wander around. The town centre was having some type of event on with two stages on either end of The Octagon, and tons of stalls around with interesting things to buy. However Sabine was interested in visiting the camera shop, so we did that. After that we got a bite to eat- a burger and chips from the kebab shop. Only the burger filling was more like a kebab filling in a burger bun. Was expecting a proper burger with patties but alas it wasn't that.
After that we visited the peninsular for some bird safari. We drove the car around and went via Portobello to Allans Beach to find some interesting things. Luckily I managed to take a few great shots of Kingfishers! So i'm happy with that! We also saw 3 different species of shags which was awesome. We drove as far as the end where the Albatross centre is. Again we didn't go inside.

12 Mon-
Sabine and I attended a photography workshop in the evening. Shes always been a keen photographer and since we sorta got to know Craig McKenzie, a somewhat famous nature photographer in NZ who lives in Dunedin (who attended the marine photography workshop a few weeks back), we have got to know of a few things we could do as a hobby, this society being one of them. It was a hall in Mary Hill from 7:30pm tonight. However it was more like a lecture from ''famous'' guest speakers from Queenstown who belong to the Canon set of professionals. Hearing a lecture about how great these people think they are, and what their influences is, is not my sorta thing. Twas half falling asleep to be honest.
It was approaching 9pm and we decided to go home mid lecture.

14 Wed-
Valentines day! I got Sabine a card and a bottle of Vimto from the international sweet shop! I got a nice card too :3

16 Fri-
It is Chinese New Year! Tonight we went to the Chinese Gardens where they were doing non-traditional food stalls (even though the nachos tasted as good as they did at Anime Club). Next was the Dragon that arrived, only for them to pack as soon as it reached the crowd of people. The garden was open too, for $1, but it was packed solid and why should we pay extra when we are annual members anyway. Also the fireworks were cancelled due to the fire ban. It was disappointing.

17 Sat-
Today we visited the butterflies again, then headed out to Brighton for a few walks very similar to the previous time we visited in the spring. Today we spotted two Royale Spoonbills at Taieri river mouth. Amazing birds!

18 Sun-
Today we left around 9:30am for the Catlins! We had a sub at Milton's Subway before heading to Purakaunui Falls and Mclean Falls again. The weather was sunny which was ideal. After visiting those two waterfalls, we visited a lake for a short walk. On the way home we visited Sinclair Wetlands near Mosgiel. it wasn't really a good wetlands walk as its footpaths seemed to avoid the actual wetland lakes itself, but it was very green and flat.
We popped into a fish and chips on the way home. Yummy!

Purakaunui Falls

on Mclean Falls river walk

Mclean Falls

Sinclair Wetlands

Dunedin airport is nearby Sinclair Wetlands

Dunedin: The weekend of the 3rd/4th Feburary

On the Saturday we went to the botanical gardens in the morning to see the Corpse Plant which wasn't quite blooming yet.
It was in the local news for finally being ready to bloom. Its a rare flower which I think is also the biggest flower in the world that flowers directly from its football sized bulb. Its also famous for being smelly. It doesn't flower every year, I think they said it flowers every 9 years or something. Anyway, it was on the news that it started flowering that afternoon. On the 4th we went back very early in the morning before the real crowd arrived, and we got to see and smell it without having to queue up for ages. On the news the queue got to over an hour long wait.

This weekend we did the same things twice, as on the 3rd in the afternoon we drove to Doctors Point Beach to find a cave that Sabine found online. The tide was coming in so we soon abandoned that. There was a strange photo shoot happening too at this cave. No idea what that was about but a lady was guarding a clothes line rack with all sorts of fancy things on it, including different shoes. After that we visited Orokonui Lagoon for a quick walk, but there wasn't much happening. just some Shell Ducks.

We re-did the whole thing again on the 4th at low tide (early afternoon), and was able to walk much further than the cave this time. As for the lagoon walk, there wasn't even ducks there this time. But we did have fun looking at the sand crabs. If you wait long enough, these little critters come out of their hiding places in the sand.

Forgot to mention, but on the Sunday morning after viewing the plant in bloom, we went to the ecosanctuary for a few hours where we ate a really tasty vegetable toasted sandwich at the cafe, and then finally we went to Doctors Point again.

Doctors Point beach, Saturday

Orokonui Lagoon

The Corpse Plant on Sunday

lunch at the ecosanctuary cafe

 

Back to Doctors Point beach again

Dunedin: Butterflies!

Waitangi Day is a national public holiday here in NZ, which was February 6th, a Tuesday. Sabine and I visited the museum and bought yearly passes each to visit the butterflies! We had been here before on re-opening weekend in December and today the weather was a bit off, so it made sense to go here on this day.

We have since been back twice more, on the 11th and on the 17th.

The place is marketed as a tropical forest, as it has a pond, waterfall, 3 levels to walk around, as well as pretty birds such as finches and Chinese Quails which are cute.

The following photos are from these 3 visits.