Day 23, Dunedin to Oamaru

We had booked a tour of the Royal Albatross Colony the day before and arrived at 8:45 for the first tour of the day. Our guide was new to the job and we were only her second group and she was very nervous and did not have a lot of confidence and was not into making small talk. We took the tour but got more out of the displays rather than the guides description of the Royal Albatrosses. They are the largest sea birds often staying sea for up to 5 years before returning to the rookery on the mainland of Otago to bred and rear there young. They are massive birds that can glide with the wind at speeds of up to 140 Kph and have a wingspan of up to 3.3 meters. From the colony we headed back toward Dunedin to tour Lanarch Castle and its beautiful gardens. The Barker Family purchased the derelict castle and lands and continues to this day upgrading and maintaining the castle. The self-guided tour was outstanding with the sad story of the Lanark family and how they shaped this land. We returned to downtown Dunedin to make motel reservations in Christ Church as this is the height of the tourist season and accommodations have been getting more difficult to find lately as we have arrived in the larger cities on the South Island. We found a place in Christ Church and stopped to have lunch at a small French restaurant that served an excellent onion soup. We were in the car and on our way to Oamaru a small town filled with lime stone buildings right on the Pacific Ocean. We made reservations at a small restaurant and had a delightful St Valentines Day dinner.