October 6 Tuesday I picked Chris up just after 10 am at his hostel, but I had already had an active morning. I got up early and went to Bob's Cove. There is a short loop trail to a small peninsula with old lime kilns and a hilltop view spot. The clouds and lighting were very nice and I got a number of pictures. We had decided to take a route to Dunedin that followed a converted railway line that is now a mountain bike trail of some 170 kms. They take 3 day tours from the high ground down to the flatland. Actually driving the road criss crosses the old railway numerous times and I think it would be a lovely mountain bike route. There were not a lot of places that we felt we had to stop and take pictures, partly because after spending several days among the very impressive mountains, the nice green rolling hills, just did not seem as picturesque. So we made quite good time and arrived in Dunedin in the early afternoon. I dropped Chris off at his hostel near the city center and after a brief stop of my own at the city center (called the Octagon) to pick of a city map, I went to find something to do. I was looking for Baldwin St, which according to Guiness is the steepest street in the world, having bumped one of San Francisco's steep streets from the top spot. Apparently, five streets in Dunedin are in the top 10 for steepness. But is was just off the map and signs were not very good, so the hill I started driving up was not it, but it had signs indicating Signal Hill Lookout. It was worth the drive to the top. This was indeed a birds eye view of Dunedin and surrounds. I returned down the hill and did find Baldwin St. My Spaceship made it up and back down without much difficulty. I next stopped at the Botanical Gardens to discover that most of the buildings closed at 4 pm. No big deal. I drove down towards the town center again and stopped to take a couple pictures of the train station, which I had been told at the info center was the most photographed building in the city. I also checked the operating hours of the Cadbury factory. They have a tour for $20, but there is also a chocolate shop in the visitor center, so I'll try and stop there tomorrow when they are open. Next I drove out to a neighborhood to the south of town and found my Couchsurfing hosts: Sophia, Miguel, and their gato Guillermo. They got me settled in, let me look through a book of local walking trails, and then we shared a dinner. Their car was being repaired and was ready to be picked up, so I gave them a ride to the mechanics across town. We made a couple stops for other things on the way, but I was happy to do it in exchange for a place to sleep and get a shower. Back at their place I went to bed quite soon afterwards.

October 7 Wednesday I slept in a bit and my hosts were already gone when I got up. I made my own breakfast then headed out to embrace the day. I stopped at the library and was told I could not use the internet there, so I went down the street and paid for a half hour at a cafe. One message was from a person I had contacted in Christchurch, who wanted to travel around the south island for a couple weeks. That was good news to me. I also stopped by the Cadbury plant again, but discovered that even to get into the shop you had to have gone on the tour, so no cheap chocolate for me. Oh well. I hit the road to the northern side of town and headed for the coast through Port Chalmers. There was a nice overlook called Flagstaff Hill, but the rest of the town was extremely sleepy (outside of some dockworkers unloading box cars). I went the rest of the way to the coast to a a split portion of the shore called The Spit on one side and Spit Beach on the other. This is a region where there are sometimes albatross and penguins, but my hosts had told me there was not much chance to see either since the young had just left the nests and most had gone for the season. I certainly did not sea any penguins or albatross, but the beach was very nice and I enjoyed walking them and finding shells. At the far end of Spit Beach, where the penguins sometimes hang out there was a rock formation called Lion Rock. Not sure why, I saw no resemblance with a lion, but it did have a nice hole through it, that could only be seen when you went past it. I'm sure most people have no idea it is there, unless they actually walk to the far end of the beach. I returned to town in the early afternoon and made my way through the Botanical Gardens, which were open this time. Then I sought out two other lookouts in the hills to the west of town, but neither was nearly as impressive as Signal Hill. When I got back to my hosts house, Sophia was just getting ready to leave and invited me to watch her play in a hockey game. She said she had to leave right away to get ready, but that soup and salad were waiting for me in the kitchen. She gave me directions and I said I would come as soon as I ate. It was easy to find the hockey rink and it was a interesting back and forth game, which had a rather exciting ending with a final goal to tie the score coming with 3 seconds left. They then had to do a shoot out and every single player had a shot. At the beginning of going through a second tour one of Sophia's team mates made a shot and when the other team missed their shot, it was over. One note I have to mention. Having stayed in a couple homes now and talking with several other people, almost no homes in New Zealand have any insulation, so they get very cold. It has only been about ten years that insulation has been used, amazingly.

October 8 Thursday After leaving a note thanking my hosts, I drove back up to Christchurch with a stop at the Moeraki Boulders. They are fascinating. The information I gathered on them said they are created through calcification much like a pearl in an oyster. When they have opened up some of the up to 3 meter boulders they have found turtle skeletons, fish skeletons, and even dinosaur skeletons. They are scattered along a section of the beach and many of them have intriguing patterns on their outer surfaces. The tide was low and I got many pictures. As I got closer to Christchurch the clouds were getting thicker and thicker. I texted Julie to see when it would be good to meet, but did not hear back. I parked in a free parking area and walked down to the library where I could access the internet. I sent Julie a message through Couchsurfing and she texted me almost immediately. The number she had given me was not correct, but we got that straightened out. I drove to where she was staying with couchsurfers on the western side of town since it was raining by then. We walked down to a nearby mall and had some sushi while we talked about our plans. It went well and we agreed to leave the next morning. Back at the place she was staying, I got permission to park the Spaceship off the street and just use their bathroom. That worked just fine.

October 9 Thursday Julie brought her bag out and we rearranged a few things in the car before heading inland on the Inland Scenic Route I had been on not that long ago. This time we went straight to Rakaia Gorge and with only a few other stops at Lake Tekapo (with heavy clouding so the mountains were obscured), we soldiered on to Mt Cook and the White Horse campground. The information center was promising clear weather in the morning, but it was really overcast and began heavily snowing. It was windy and incredibly cold, but we made the best of it. We ran the heater as long as I dared and when I went to reposition the van so we could cook a little more out of the wind the car wouldn't start. So it was longer than I should have dared obviously. There was a couple from Alaska staying at the campground in a Jucy van. I checked with them and they said they would not leave in the morning until we were fixed up. I told them how much we would appreciate that.

October 10 Sabbath As promised the sky was completely clear and it was beautiful. And as promised the couple from Alaska retrieved a battery charger from the visitor center. Between us we got the car jumped and I ran the engine for about 20 minutes so it would not be a recurring problem. They had been doing some mountain climbing until the weather got too bad yesterday and were heading out to meet friends at another mountain further north, so we thanked them and let them go. We walked out on the Hooker Glacier walk as far as they would allow us (the rockfall was still being cleared up), but we could see the glacier by the time we had to stop. Then we went over to the Tasman Glacier and this time in addition to climbing the viewing point we also walked down to the lake shore where we were closer to the icebergs. No one was using the small boats today, but they were actually 12 seaters. When Chris and I had been there before I thought they were just 4 person dinghys, they looked so small along the icebergs. We spent the mid to late afternoon driving. Half of this terrain I had seen before with Chris, but the rest was new as we approched Oamaru, where my friend Jen Ogden lives. She had been camping at Stewart Island for the past week and I was hoping she was back so we could ask about the island and some other things. Julie is a certified teacher in Germany and wanted more info on the process of becoming certified in New Zealand. Jen is a teacher, so that would have been convenient. But it was not meant to be. We arrived and found the SDA church, which was right on the main street through town, but no one was there. The sign out front had a phone number for the pastor and a head elder. The first went to a wrong number and I interrupted someone's dinner and the second number just rang and rang. So no one could let us into the church. We parked behind the building and used a restroom down the street at a gas station and stayed the night. Julie is a rather picky eater in some ways, we stopped in five different restaurants and none was close enough to what she wanted and she absolutely does not cook herself. I made enough pasta for both of us and we ate that.