Dunedin Light wishes you a great Valentine's Day ... we hope it's a day filled with romance, chocolate, blazing red roses and a sneaky surf. Although, as one of our Facebook fans pointed out, one day a year is hardly enough for romance:
 
"Treat every day like Valentine's ... girls appreciate that way more than a commercialised day!"
 
If you're looking for something different why not visit one of your favourite places around Dunedin like Tunnel Beach (above)? Over the past week in our travels around Dunedin's beaches we have run into a lot of tourists making the most of our wild and spectacular places.
 
It's always refreshing to speak with people from France, Germany, USA and countless other places around the globe and to hear the excitement bubbling up in their voices as they describe a visit to one of these places – a place that is right there in our backyard.
 
Sometimes it takes someone from the other side of the world to remind you that we have world-class natural attractions just five minutes down the road. When was the last time you visited Tunnel Beach? How about Sandfly Bay on the Otago Peninsula? Yep, like me, not nearly enough.
 
My favourite tourist this week was an English gentleman in his early 30s. He came running up to me at a deserted beach early one morning. His eyes were wild and the jog had taken his breath away. He clasped his hands on his knees and drew three deep breaths and started looking over his shoulder and pointing, struggling to blurt out, "there's, there's, there's a ... a ... it's a flaming walrus! There's a walrus down there on the beach!"
 
It took every bit of diplomatic nous I had to not burst into laughter. I suggested it might be a sea lion, which was just as great news to him and only caused his eyes to dart around as if it might have been an actual lion he was sharing the beach with. He'll have a great story to tell his friends back home that's for sure!
 
See you at the beach ...