In which The Protagonists drive to the not-so-Scottish Scottish town.

After our Queenstown adventures, Katie and I hit the road for our second-to-last big driving day. We packed some snacks for breakfast and headed back through the mountains towards Dunedin, the "Scottish" city on the southeastern coast of the South Island. The drive was actually quite fun, and didn't involve too many winding roads, despite the warning we received from the receptionist as we were checking out of our still-fruit-fly-infested room at the Queens Park Hotel. (To be fair, they did try to spray the room down, supposedly.)

We arrived at The Brothers boutique hotel after a slight detour (read: we got lost) in the city center. We checked in, were shown around, and then got the key to our room: The Chapel. The Chapel is a large corner room, which was a chapel and converted monk's quarters before it became a hotel room. The stained glass windows and the beams overhead were lovely, and I found the room awe-inspiring. We also had a great view over the city from our far window, AND the room came with wine! Although at this point in the trip, we're trying to get rid of wine, not collect any more. There are so many good wineries here!

We dropped off our stuff, and headed back into the city center to find the SINGLE Scottish shop in the city, which had a less-than-exciting selection of kilt pins, sporrans, and other Scottish memorabilia. I don't know why I convinced myself that there would be a plethora of items from which to choose, but I did. We left shortly after we arrived, and headed out to the Royal Albatross Centre, "the world's only mainland colony of Royal Albatross" (if you believe that New Zealand counts as a "mainland"). We took the low road, which turns out to be faster and safer than the high road according to our tour guide. She briefed us on the history of their conservatory, after which we watched an informational video. Post video, we took a small hike up the hill, where we could see an albatross soaring around for a landing. Once inside the observatory, we saw several chicks sitting in their nests, juveniles having a "party", and some juveniles and adults flying around. We even saw one albatross mother feeding her chick! It's less gross than I imagined.

The juveniles were jerks, showing off and messing with the babies.

Coming in for the landing!

Beautiful thistles.

After we left the observatory, we walked down to a set of observation decks closer to the beach before driving back to town. On the way back to the chapel, we picked up some Chinese food to eat in the room. We ate while watching a rerun of Graham Norton, and then wrote some postcards while watching Supernatural. It was around this time when I read in the book on the hotel that they request we don't eat in the rooms, so I ran all around the hotel trying to find some place to throw away our takeout boxes. There was only one problem: there were no trash cans outside of our room. Not even in the parking lot! These boutique hotels in New Zealand are something else.

We finished our postcards and decided to finally do the Tim Tam Slam. It was, possibly, the best decision we made in Dunedin. (Again, search Hank Green Tim Tam Slam in YouTube.) I highly suggest everyone try it, if you can get your hands on some tim tams.