Chocolate, castles and crazy Guides.

Not wanting to be late for our 9am tour, we set off for the Cadbury Factory at 8:45am. We got there at around 8:47am (I told you it was close). Throughout the tour, we kept getting saddled with additional bags of chocolate for almost no reason at all - noone seemed to mind though. The aroma of the nearby creation of Jaffa's while we consumed our melted chocolate (with a spoon) was a fairly pleasant experience.

The kids were jam-packed full of sugary exuberance as we visited the nearby Meridian shopping centre. I make note of this, as it was a real shopping centre - the first we have seen in NZ. Most towns have street-side shops and corner stores - and that's it. This place had escalators and an eatery for goodness sake! I was also able to get the third book in a trilogy I have been reading (sad I know), most impressive.

The weather was mild (patchy cloud and around 15 degrees) as we drove out along the Otago Peninsula. It was fun driving, as the road clung to the edge of the water - no safety rails or even reflector posts to be seen. Our first stop was Larnach Castle - built by some bloke from Singleton (country town west of Newcastle) of all places. The grounds were great, and the interior was very ornate.




There was a stone spiral staircase in a turret of the narrow variety which allowed access to the top tower. Hamish apparently doesn't share my healthy respect of heights, as I turned to see a couple of legs poking out between the crenellations as he sought a better view.






The road back down from the Castle afforded a fairly nice view of Otago Harbour. We continued out along the peninsula for our next stop - the Penguin Place.




Our Guide immediately concluded that we had under-dressed both ourselves and our 'wee kiddies' for the conditions at hand. We satisfied her by draping both Hamish and Lily in the largest 'Extra Small' windcheaters I have seen. We then clambered on a mini-bus and took a 5 minute ride through a bunch of sheep paddocks (exotic huh?). Off the bus, we nearly bumped into some largish fur seals on our way through the sheep paddock to the Penguin observation trenches (the kids perspiring heavily at this point).

We had resigned ourselves to not seeing any penguins, as it was (according to our cheery Guide): the wrong time of year, the wrong time of day, and the wrong tide level. Naturally, we saw a bunch of them. We were all stunned by how close we could get to them. Our Guide became a little choked up as she described the 'beautiful' relationship between a Penguin pair (which she spoke about at length). Someone needs to get out of the Observation Trenches a little more often I think.

It was a great day, and the weather a definite improvement on the South Coast. Joshie also tried his first mouthful of apple-puree. The degree to which he scrunched his face up may be an indicator that he is not a fan.