Doo-nay-din

Dunedin is about 3h southeastish from Cromwell. I wish I could say I did it in 2, but there's no way to drive the roads here at much more than what's posted. Nor would you want to really. This drive goes from the rocky (I'm guessing granite) outcropped grey-green hills down to green and straw colored hills.

Dunedin is a seaside town founded by the Scottish immigrants that came to the this area. Once you know this fact, it explains a lot about the South Island–like why there's so many sheep; why most every house has a fenced yard; why a lot of the countryside resembles what I've seen of the British Isles (I've never been so I can't say for certain); why fish n' chips, meat pies, and sausages are standard cuisine; why cricket and rugby are the national sports; and why you'll hear words or phrases like 'bugger', 'bloody', 'half 6' (6:30), 'good as gold', 'how ya goin'?', 'good on ya'.

Dunedin is a Gaelic word for Edinburgh and Dunedin is sometimes called the Edinburgh of the south. Again, I've never been to Scotland, but I'd say it's pretty easy to see why Dunedin was popular with the Scots. It's home to First Church, Cadbury Confectionery Ltd., Speights Brewery, University of Otago and other schools (Dunedin is a college town. Something like 20% of the population are students), the Settler's Museum, the World's Steepest Street (I don't know if this is true as I didn't go to it), the Octagon, and the gateway to Otago Peninsula–home of the Royal Albatross colony, rare yellow-eyed penguins, seals, sea lions, and various other birds. I headed straight to the Botanic Garden. What can I say? I like 'em.

Man do people from the British Isles know how to garden. Gardening must be encoded in their DNA or something. This garden is massive, some 70ha. I was there for about 2h and still didn't see it all. My favorite parts were the South African section and the herbaceous walkway. Seeing the S. African section adds another reason why I want to go there. Some of those plants are nuts.

I was finishing up in the rose garden checking for other roses with interesting names (the one below is called 'Hamburger Phoenix'–which I think is one of the best names ever), minding my own business when an inebriated coed who was walking through with her friends stopped dead in her tracks to talk to me. Seriously. Stopped cold. Yada, yada, yada she's walking me back to the bar from wince she came (she'd lost her roomkey and I needed suggestions for a backpacker/hostel). I haven't been hit on by an 18yr old in a really long time. I know I look young for my age, but damn. It's all good fun though.

When we got to Gardies, I just started laughing at the spectacle that was there before me. It was orientation week in Dunedin which meant a drunken mess from all the students returning with nothing to do but be oriented. Oh did it bring back memories; except we weren't legally allowed out in public at that age–thankfully. I spent a couple of hours there watching the youngins make fools of themselves while I chatted with the bartenders.

From there I went to find a hostel but it was way too late so I ended up in the holiday park where I was gonna sleep in my car. No worries, I'd anticipated and to an extent planned on this prior to leaving Cromwell. The back seat folds down and I brought my sleeping back. There's enough room for me to sleep on the diagonal but it's not anything that I'd wanna do for an extended period of time.

I went back to Gardies to be humored more by the youngins and to flirt with one of the bartenders some more. From Gardies, I walked to the Octagon which is the center of town and also where the majority of the bars are. It had been spitting all day long but now it was starting to rain. Real rain. I stayed out way too late and it being orientation week and raining, there were no cabs at all. This meant I had to walk back to the holiday park (it was probably a mile or so from the Octagon). Absolutely drenched, I crawled into the back of my car and went to sleep. Good times. Good times.

The next day I went to the Cadbury factory for a tour which was somewhat lame. It was the shortened tour so I didn't get to see any of the real action that happens M-F. Cadbury is famous for their cream eggs at Easter in the States, but in much of the rest of the world, especially those having some sort of ties to the British Isles, it's the brand of chocolate. Their claim of specialness is how they make their milk chocolate. The process on paper is pretty interesting (making a crumble out of the milk and chocolate) but again, I didn't get to see it in practice. One of the things that really tripped me out was that they process 20,000L of milk (only from Otago, maybe even Central Otago, I can't remember) a day! They have no storage facility for their milk; it comes in and gets made into their milk chocolate the same day. Crazy. The other thing that's pretty nuts is they have a 5story silo housing a chocolate waterfall. It's not a real pretty thing this waterfall. I think it's pretty gross actually. They drop 1ton of chocolate (which is 8mons old) probably 4 of the 5 stories. It falls for 30s. I asked the guide after it was over why they did that and her answer was essentially because they can, trying to be like Willy Wonka a bit. I wonder what Dahl would think about this.

After this, I went and had some good hangover food at a Japanese restaurant and then stopped in an art boutique. I went in to ask about street parking, but had the pleasant surprise of walking into a space that sold pottery and ceramic pieces. Turns out 12 members of the local potters club/guild/whathaveyou have rented the space to show off their pieces for sale/show/etc. They work in the shop roughly once a week or something. I thought it was pretty clever. Some of the stuff was cool and different and some of the stuff was like the things Kim makes (not that what Kim makes isn't awesome; just not anything she's tried yet I suppose). Kim, I asked for some suggestions for someone just starting out and the general consensus was to just keep at it. The other suggestion was to seek out blogs from other artists to engage yourself into the community. I'm sure you know this already, but there you go.

Then I walked around a fair bit more. Saw First Church. Saw the public art museum. There was a very intense exhibit from a NZ woman who had breast cancer. The theme of her exhibit was about her time being treated in the hospital for cancer. It was well done. Skipped the Settler's Museum, Speights Brewery, the World's Steepest Street, and unfortunately the Otago Peninsula. I went up to the Signal Hill Overlook then bounced. One really needs much more time than 24h in Dunedin and the surrounding area. I'd say 5d would do it justice; 7d if you really wanna take your time and see everything. I'd go back, preferably in better weather.

Peace fam. Stay frosty.

Dunedin from Signal Hill Overlook

One of the indigenous plants of New Zealand

Close Up

The largest asparagus I've ever seen. In the Mexican plants section. I don't know what it is really. Couldn't find the label.

Fynbos S. African section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fynbos

S. African section

S. African section

More Fynbos

Fynbos up close

See what I mean? They just know how to garden.

Hamburger Phoenix

Me and Emma–18 years old

Dunedin Train Station from near the Octagon.

Cadbury chocolate waterfall

Cadbury factory

Seafood Udon. Perfect hangover cure esp. on a rainy day

Potter's Collective

First Church

On the road between Alexandra and Roxburgh on the way home