Wildlife Spotting in Otago

I helped Mummy and Daddy to pack our ‘holiday’ suitcases and off we went on a ‘plane’ to Dunedin to explore the Otago Peninsula.

We had great fun in our ‘holiday home’ and saw lots of wildlife (my favourite being ‘Bob’ the ‘Alby’ – Albatross). We had quite a bit of rain, but I didn’t mind. My ‘gumboots’ got lots of wear out of them and I loved splashing in the puddles. We tucked up in the warm of our holiday home when it was raining hard and had fun making dens out of the duvets and a ‘ticket booth’ out of a cardboard box; ‘Tickets please’! The couple that owned the holiday home, Marie and Dave, were really lovely and gave me lots of toys to play with. I loved Dave’s old car collection and asked to see it every day of our holiday.

Just across the road from us was a lovely beach and we were very close to the Albatross colony, which was brilliant. We were lucky to see Albatross fly right over our heads and ‘Bob’ the Albatross feed her chick on Easter Sunday. We also saw a blue penguin come ashore from a day’s fishing and a beautiful yellow-eyed penguin (found only in New Zealand and as rare as the giant panda!) on a fun nature trip in a little ‘brrrrrmmm’. I saw three panda bear collection boxes on my holiday and kept Daddy out of pocket (to WWF’s great benefit!). Mummy kept saying her old job had come back to haunt her!

On Easter Sunday I had great fun collecting eggs in the garden, which the Easter Bunny had hidden for me to find! One of my many new words is ‘chocolate’ (‘Uh oh!’ say Mummy and Daddy). I was very thankful to Grandma and Grandad Aspinall for sending me a brilliant book about a little boy who finds eggs for breakfast on his Grandma’s farm. I also took the little rabbit bag she sent me everywhere (with my trains, Thomas and James, in it).

On Easter Monday we went on a lovely walk amongst sand dunes and in the afternoon went on a boat trip to see fur seals and sea birds, as well as two little sharks!

On Tuesday, we visited a castle (where I saw a lovely black and white cat, which I called ‘London’). The castle gardens were beautiful and had amazing views.

On our last day we went into Dunedin for a swim in a big pool, with a wave machine and water sprays. I LOVE the water! In the afternoon we visited a beautiful railway station and a museum with lovely old cars and trains (I love old cars and trains).

I loved my Easter holiday, but best of all I loved spending so much fun time with my Mummy and Daddy (and they had lots and lots of fun and laughter too!). The plane journey back wasn’t very relaxing (lots of wind and rain as we entered Wellington), but we finally landed safe and sound and I slept very well in my bed.