Okay, maybe Dunedin is redeeming itself slightly. For one thing, the sun shone today! So we went back up the Otago peninsula - where we'd gone the other day and not been able to see two yards in front of our noses - and had another go at visiting Lanarch Castle.
The guy who built it wasn't born in England, but his family were. And he made his money in banking, not gold. The castle was amazing, and so was the story of its restoration. I particularly likes the 1 ton marble bath, copied from one in Pompeii, and lovingly installed on the very topmost floor of the castle.
We saw more birds - we stopped on the way there at a memorial, and I saw a skylark rise from the ground and climb up, singing, until I lost sight of it in the blue of the sky. I've read about that so often, but never thought I'd see it. Also a bellbird, at the castle - the loveliest song, though nothing like the skylark's.
Next stop was some even more exciting birds - there's an albatross colony at the end of the peninsula, so for the first time ever we got to see albatrossossosses. They are huge! Immense! And their wings fold up like a cantilever - I guess with wings that long, they'd have to. Some of them were sitting on the nests, as this is the incubation period, and others - the juveniles - kept wheeling by on their enormous wings overhead.
Because it's a sanctuary, lots of other wildlife is flourishing there too - seals, Stewart Island cormorants, black-backed gulls - and red-billed gulls by the zillion. The sun shone, the views were amazing, and the birds were incredible. Maybe I would recommend visiting, if not Dunedin, then the Otago peninsula.
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