An active weekend

After a quiet few days the weekend was set up to be fairly hectic.

It started with a trip to Carisbrook Stadium on Friday evening to see the Otago Highlanders play the Queensland Reds in the Super 14 rugby. Tony had got tickets on the terrace so that we could be in amongst the livelier part of the crowd. Suffice to say it was 'interesting' as the banter from the crowd was entertaining, particularly as more and more beer flowed.

The Highlanders won 33 - 17, which at least kept the home crowd happy. I hadn't been to a live game for many years and I found I had to concentrate much more than when watching on tv as the action was so far away and there was no commentary. You couldn't even hear the explanations from the referee, which you now can on tv. The large screen did make it easier to see the reasons for decisions but it was difficult to keep up with it at times.

On Saturday I booked a ticket for the 4-hour trip on Taieri Gorge Railway - a spectacular journey with airy viaducts and dramatic scenery. We stopped a couple of times on the way up and back and it was very warm under the clear blue skies.

With apologies to my colleagues Anne and Abbi who have complained about too many references to dogs in my blogs, there was also a statue to border collies to mark their 150 years working the sheep of the Otago region.

On Sunday I rented a car and went to see the Otago Peninsula. It was another beautiful day with a clear blue sky.

I drove slowly up the peninsula, letting other cars and even cyclists pass! My first stop was at the Royal Albatross Centre where I took the one-hour tour, led by a guy from Manchester who'd moved out to NZ 8 years ago. We saw a few fledgling birds, which are still impressive in size, but not the adults with their 3 metre plus wingspan.

After lunch I moved on to Natures Wonders (shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) and went on a one-hour trip on their little 8-wheeled argo-cats. It was really dusty so we had to wear jackets.

So, to keep Anne and Abbi happy, whilst we didn't see any cats or monkeys which they would have liked, we did see Yellow-Eyed Penguins, fur seals, little blue penguins, Stewart island Shags, Royal Albatross and lots of other sea birds - is that good enough for you?

Sorry the penguin's not very clear put was taken from quite a distance so as not to disturb them - but they were still comical waddling up the beach. Not quite the tap dancing I saw in the film Happy Feet on the way over!

I then had a wonderful drive back down the centre of the peninsula with some quite spectacular views to the Pacific on one side and down into Otago Harbour on the other.

So, a hectic few days but giving me plenty of ideas for the few days Viv is going to spend here with me when she arrives.