The morning started off with a trip to the farmers market, followed by an excursion to see some wildlife in the afternoon!
The Dunedin farmers market is apparently world famous...it was written up in the Chicago Tribune just a few weeks ago (thanks to Mam-mam for finding the article and showing me :))! A few friends and I opted to go early-ish to try and beat the crowds, but it seemed like everyone had the same idea. The farmers market is every Saturday of the year, rain or shine, next to the gorgeous Dunedin Railway Station.
At the farmers market there was plentiful produce, hot foods, and my favorite..coffee!
The market will definitely be worth the trip back in the near future!
That afternoon a friend and I took a bus down the lovely Otago Peninsula, known for housing one of the (if not THE) only royal albatross colonies in the world and providing a safe haven for the highly endangered yellow penguins. We traveled to the Penguin Place, which is a conservation which provides an unobtrusive yet supportive environment for some of the last of the 3,000 yellow eyed penguins left on this planet. Penguin Place also runs a rehabilitation center for penguins, both yellowed eyed and their more common counterpart, blue penguins, who were at risk of death from factors such as human influences or even shark attacks!
We had the pleasure of seeing not only the beautiful scenery on the Otago Peninsula, but also the 30 yellow eyed penguins in the Penguin Place Hospital, a blue penguin in the wild, and both fur seals and sea lions abound! Rather unfortunately I realized once I was on the bus that I left my camera battery at home, and so 'old school' iPhone photos and videos will have to do the trick :). Instead of putting all the pictures up, I instead created a short video of the afternoon to try and capture the scenery in its totality.
This next weekend I will be traveling to Queenstown with my program for what I'm sure will be another quintessential New Zealand experience!
Comments