Sandfly Bay sea lion

Walked down to the Otago Settlers Museum this morning and spent a good couple of hours in there. Great museum (it had a $38 million upgrade last year), and so nice to be able to spend time looking at pretty much everything in there.

Had lunch at Velvet Burger, then went back to the same café as yesterday for a coffee and more free WiFi. Sent my sister a birthday message on facebook. After reading and relaxing back in our hostel room for a while, we went back out (by car) mid-afternoon to see the world's steepest residential street - Baldwin Street. Crazily steep (1 in 1.286)! We parked at the bottom and walked up to the top, taking several touristy photos on the way.

Came back to the hostel again and cooked and ate an early dinner, before heading back out to Sandfly Bay. Much less windy this evening - a much better night to be down on the beach. Incredibly steep walk down through sand dunes and very soft sand.

There was a DOC guide on the beach, sitting down with several people, and she asked us to sit down, too, so that we wouldn't disturb the penguins coming in from the sea at the end of the beach. There were a couple of penguins, very far away and high up a hillside, but we could just make them out. Sat watching for quite a while, but didn't see any come out of the sea. We then walked the length of the beach to a viewing hide at the other end. Again, no sign of any penguins coming in from the sea, but it was interesting talking to the guide and we had beautiful views of the beach all the same.

Stayed in the hide until about 8pm, then helped close all the shutters and walked back along the beach with the guide and another couple. Saw this massive sea lion making its way down to the sea, stopping every few steps for a lie-down (they are big old buggers - must be an effort moving all that bulk outside of the water!) Really close to see it so close up.

Trudged back up the sand dunes and track and then drove back into Dunedin. Beautiful views of the city as we can over Highcliff Drive in the twilight.