South Island Trip - Days 9 & 10 - around Dunedin

spotted in Dunedin - a jolly student wheeze, or the world's most expensive can of Pepsi?

Day 9 - Te Anau to Dunedin

We spent a very long day driving, and I'm ashamed to say we took no photos at all. I think our trip to Fiordland spoilt us, as far as appreciating attractive scenery's concerned. Our favourite part was the Clutha district of southern Otago between the towns of Gore and Clinton. The road is called 'The Presidential Highway', presumably a tongue-in-cheek reference to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. It was pleasant, rolling farmland - mainly given over to sheep of course, but there was also some cattle and arable farming. It reminded us of the Derbyshire Dales, although without the dry stone walls. One reason the landscape looked so familiar was because the first European settlers replaced the native trees with oaks, willows, ashes, poplars and even some hawthorn hedges – the first hedges we’ve seen in New Zealand.

Day 10 - Dunedin

Dunedin was planned by Scottish settlers, with the express intention of becoming 'the Edinburgh of the South'. The name of the city is an anglicisation of Dùn Èideann, the Gaelic name for Edinburgh. Not surprisingly, given its origins, the city's laid out on a rather grand street plan, and there are a lot of ornate late Victorian and Edwardian public buildings – although most of them are built in brick rather than in the granite of its namesake. Being a major student town, it manages to be both bustling and laid back, which is a pretty neat trick if you can pull it off.

In the morning we visited the Otago Settlers Museum, and saw some fascinating displays about the impact the European settlement had on the local Maori tribes, the sea voyages taken by the European migrants in the nineteenth century, and the history of Chinese migration to the area.

a mock-up of a typical cabin on a vessel that transported immigrants

A box this size was all a migrating British family was allowed to take with them to New Zealand in the 19th century. It makes our 14 teachests seem highly extravagant.

Hands up if you thought the world’s steepest street was in California. Me too, but all the guidebooks maintain that Baldwin Street in Dunedin is the record breaker, so we went to have a look. The road is so steep there are steps where the pavement would normally be, and on the way up we had to keep on stopping to take a breather.

Baldwin Street, Dunedin, the world's steepest street (allegedly)

Whenever I stopped I would hear faint rolling noises getting gradually louder and then fading away again. On closer inspection of the tarmac, I found the culprits hop-skip-jumping along in the gutter - dozens of jaffas, (little balls of orange flavoured chocolate covered in an orange sugar shell), which someone presumably had let go at the top of the street.

Look, no ropes!

One of the annual events held in Baldwin Street involves Jaffas. It's a Jaffa race, where competitors pay a couple of dollars to sponsor a jaffa. The winner gets a cash prize and the rest of the money raised goes to chairty. The event regularly attracts up to 10,000 entrants. Another yearly event is the Baldwin Street Gustbuster, in which athletes test their stamina and balance by racing up the street and back down again.

In the evening we went to visit a colony of yellow eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula, at a privately-owned conservation project called Penguin Place. A series of tunnels and hides allowed us to view the penguins at close quarters, and our guide was very knowledgable.

an adult yellow-eyed penguin, showing the first signs of moulting

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, taking about a hundred photos (although only two or three were any good). Even though the visit lasted an hour and a half, I could happily have stayed twice as long. Here's a link to the website of the NZ Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust.

Helen