Clan Haley

Travel to Dunedin

Today our main task was to get back to the airport, drop our hire car off and board a short flight to Dunedin. Luckily this flight wasn't until 5pm so we had plenty of time left to go for a little explore.

We decided to go for a walk up Mount Eden. The highest of the many (possibly 50ish) volcanic peaks within Auckland. On the way up to the summit we found a couple of geocaches. One was shapped like a bee and was particularly tricky to find. There is something quite nerve racking about rooting around behind a fence post in a foreign country. Luckily there aren't many venoumous spiders in New Zealand and very few that would cause a human serious problems.

After the summit we stopped at the vistor centre to read about the volcanic activty that formed the hills in Auckland as well as their importance to Maori culture. Most of the summits and surrounding land formed homes, forts and farmland to Maori people due to the steep sides and fertile volcanic soil. We also stopped for a quick drink where James tried his very first fluffy. These are very foamy milk served in a little cup often with a sprinkling of cocoa and a few marshmallows that are "native" to NZ and Australia. James thought it was fantastic and I suspect we will be ordering a lot of them on this trip.

A quick stop at a playground to burn off a little energy before dropping the car off and boarding our flight. On arrival we picked up another car that we will keep for our South Island adventure.