Zelma’s Trip

The Otago peninsular is famous for its wildlife, notably yellow-eyed penguins and albatrosses.  We drove out there and stopped at an albatross breeding grounds.  Unfortunately  they all appeared to have already bred, or were working up to it and hence weren’t in the area.  There were, however hundreds of gulls and also a large group of shags.  A Japanese girl came over, pointed to the shags and said, "Pingu?", to me.  I informed her that they weren’t infact penguins but didn’t have the heart to tell her what they were, lest she misunderstood, and instead decided to point to a sign next to me.  When we were at this area the wind was insane, like it nearly took the car door off when I opened it, so we didn’t spend too long admiring the shags.  Oh, there are sooo many opportunities for dodgy puns here but I’ll ignore them!

After the shags (or maybe I won’t) we carried on driving around the coast through some quite amazing scenery.  We stopped in a lovely little town/ village for lunch and I had a great seafood chowder.  After lunch we headed to Larnarch castle.  For some reason we struggled to find the entrance to the castle itself (yes it was a large door) but we did eventually and headed in.  The inside of the castle was interesting but I thought the paintings were a bit shabby.  In one room, which you entered through ominous double curtains, there were old wedding dresses, hairbrushes and the like.  There was also a rather eerie character suspended from the ceiling on wires which was somewhat odd.  In the bathroom the toilet seat had been nailed shut and we both discussed who would really walk into a period castle and think it appropriate to use the ancient toilet.  After looking inside the castle we headed out into the manicured gardens.  We decided to do the woodland walk and, having asked Lance if he had farted, realised that we were next to the not so ancient sewerage system.  Having been next to the excrement, seen some cute ducklings and more lovely gardens, we headed back across the peninsular to town.

Back in town we went to Burger King.  Rather reassuringly Burger King is called Burger King in New Zealand and not Hungry Jacks as in Australia.  Having asked for a veggie burger which was not on the menu and some mayonnaise which apparently they’re not meant to serve you I asked to see which toys they had.  A young guy, who clearly either thought I was a complete moron or wanted to go home, then came over, slammed them all on the desk several times and then said, "Can you put toy through the till?  This woman wants to BUY one!".