Today was spent travelling through some majestic countryside to get us to New Zealand’s South Island’s second largest city. We will spend three nights here.

There was very little traffic on the route we selected for today’s trip, which allowed us to gape and gawk at steep mountains, rolling hills and fields, and lots of sheep and cattle grazing on sometimes impossibly steep slopes.

Mick did strike one traffic jam as we got close to our first stop – in Ranfurly.

Mick asked what he should do as we got closer to this ute which was travelling at around 10km per hour. Having grown up with a father who was a grazier and a stock dealer I knew the answer. I told him he had to wait until the mob of sheep got to where the farmer wanted them to be, or wait to be called on by the driver.

It was only a few minutes, of pure entertainment as we watched the two sheep dogs getting instructions from the farmer’s whistles, until the sheep headed left into a paddock.

We then continued on to Ranfurly where we enjoyed a coffee and yet more New Zealand scones. We shared the busy cafe with lots of cyclists. This part of Central Otago has lengthy, often-challenging bike tracks, and at least 8 people had made it to the local cafe in Ranfurly. It was hard to pick the accents, but it was easy to pick their ages. They were our age at least or even older. Very impressive I thought!

I said to Mick that New Zealanders must get very disappointed when they come across to Australia and order a scone. Our scones are nowhere near as good, or as large as the ones here, with a totally different texture and often with flavours we wouldn’t entertain.

For a town with a population of 780, it had a lot on offer.

I then suggested to Mick that instead of heading straight to Dunedin that we detour slightly and head to Port Chalmers. I enticed him with the possibility of finding some fresh seafood for lunch. While that did not eventuate, he did find a café that advertised whitebait fritters. The owners of ‘Johhny’s’ told Mick that they were famous for their fritters, which turned out to be a cluster of fresh whitebait held together by an egg mixture of some sort and gently fried. The ‘fritter’ was then served on top of a fresh slice of white bread with butter. Mick was very happy.

We were surprised to see an enormous cruise ship moored a few hundred metres from the main street, and of course this meant the shops were quite busy with the travellers. The little town must love it.

There were some great old buildings in Port Chalmers. The main type of shop other than food outlets in the main street were antique and secondhand shops. We spent a little time browsing some of the old pieces, before making our way to Dunedin.

The city is said to be famous as being the Wildlife Capital of New Zealand, and there are lots of eco tours and opportunities for visitors to get up close to Blue Penguins and Royal Albatross, to name just two species.

But Dunedin is also said to be one of the “best-preserved Victorian and Edwardian cities in the Southern Hemisphere”. And on a short walk during the afternoon I did spot some wonderful examples of preserved architectural history.

A little further on, the old railway station, now museum, is said to be the most photographed building in Dunedin. The following snippet from Wikipedia may well have been written by a local.

 It is speculated by locals to be the most photographed building in the country, as well as the second most photographed in the southern hemisphere, after the Sydney Opera House

The weather looks set to be cloudy and cool for our remaining two days, but I’m confident we will find lots to see.