Dunedin:

Lately, Hilary and I have been doing a lot of local trips in the area between Wanaka and Queenstown. We haven’t been able to do much exploring or see new areas of New Zealand, either because we haven’t had consecutive days off together, or because we’ve had other commitments or plans. Finally, however, everything lined up and we were able to get down to Dunedin for a weekend. We haven’t made it to Dunedin yet, so we were finally able to cover some more unchartered territory in New Zealand.

Dunedin is a really cool city on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. It’s one of the larger cities in the country and is home to the Otago University, so there is a large student population in the city. It also has a large Scottish influence and there are lots of old buildings and many of the streets have Scottish names. 

Getting to Dunedin:

But, before we get too carried away with Dunedin itself, we made a few stops between Wanaka and Dunedin that are worth mentioning.

Cromwell Orchards:

So, this one is more of an honourable mention because I thought that the pictures were so cool here and wanted to share a couple. As we were driving through Cromwell we stopped in at an orchard to get a bit of fruit for the drive down. All of the leaves in the orchard were in full autumn mode so we decided to take a quick wander through.

 

I’m not an expert on orchards, so I have no idea what fruit these trees produce, but I can say with extreme authority that they are set up perfectly for photo taking. To Hilary’s dismay, I decided to spent close to an hour walking up row after row of the orchard taking pictures. But really, can you blame me?

 

St Bathans and Blue Lake:

Also on our journey to Dunedin was a place called St. Bathans and Blue Lake. It’s about 15 minutes off of the main road, but it is totally worth the stop. Saint Bathans is a gold mining town and consists of about 10 buildings, and blue lake is a man made lake from the sluicing operations of the mine.

There are some walking paths around the lake, and the lake itself is quite unique. We didn’t stay long but were there long enough to take some photos and I also had a quick flight with my quadcopter to explore the area. Check out the video below!

 

Moeraki Boulders and Hampden:

We ended up staying the night in a small town called Hampden which is an hour’s drive north of Dunedin. The campground that we stayed at in Hampden is on the edge of the ocean, and not far down the road is a famous spot called Moeraki. Actually, it’s not really Moeraki itself that’s famous as the town is really only a few buildings, but on the beach near Moeraki is a place called the Moeraki Boulders. These are a bunch of really cool round rocks that sit on the beach and are all different sizes (you can picture them as a bunch of miniature death stars if that helps).

The rocks are technically called concretions and were exposed by erosion of the shoreline. After seeing them I decided to get a bit nerdy and try to find out how the Moeraki Boulders were formed, so if you’re interested you can take a look for yourself.

After staying the night in Hampden, we woke up early to catch the sunrise at the boulders. Even though it was the middle of the week and the beginning of winter, there were still a few other people down on the beach taking sunrise pictures with us. The tide was quite high and coming in quickly while we were down on the beach so some of the boulders were already half underwater, but we were still able to get close, even if it did mean getting wet feet for some of the photos.

In reality, the only photo that proved difficult with the high tide and demanded that I get my feet wet was the one below. With one of the boulders cracked open, it was just asking for someone to sit in it and pretend that they were cracking out of it like an egg. I can’t take credit for the idea as that was all Hilary, but she couldn’t pull through on the execution of the idea (something about “new boots” or something) so that’s where I came in. You can’t see any other people in the picture, which is probably good because I’m sure they were all giving me dubious looks that were questioning both my maturity and my sanity.

 

The Penguins and Seals at the Lighthouse:

There is a lighthouse in the town of Moeraki that you can drive out to. A walking trail from the lighthouse takes you down to a point of land where a seal colony likes to call home. Early in the morning, you’re also sometimes able to see a small number of Yellow-Eyed Penguins.

We were a bit late getting there in the morning as we had already been to the boulders for the sunrise, but we were still able to see one penguin who was still hanging out on shore. Penguins generally sleep on shore during the night and then leave shore when it first gets light to spend the day fishing in the ocean. Because of this, we weren’t expecting to see any penguins, but this guy seemed to be a bit of a straggler and he wasn’t in any hurry to get in the water.
 

The penguins here are very endangered and rare (especially the yellow-eyed penguin), and small shelters have been built for them to try to help protect them.

Further down the beach from the penguins is the seal colony. There were a bunch of young pups in the colony that we watched as they chased each other around and played. Besides the pups, however, the seals were quite boring and smelly so we didn’t stay long. After this, we continued on our way down to Dunedin itself.

 

Exploring Dunedin:

Now, by the time we had been to the Moeraki Boulders and the lighthouse, we were quite late when we actually arrived in Dunedin. It was also starting to rain and we wanted to get on the road early enough that we didn’t have to do the 3 hour drive back to Wanaka in the dark. So, this left us with about 4 or 5 hours in Dunedin to explore. 

Baldwin Street (The steepest street in the world):

So it turns out that Dunedin is home to the steepest street in the world which is quite cool. It also doesn’t surprise me that much as the Kiwis don’t seem to stray away from putting roads in crazy spots. Whether they be in the bottom of narrow twisty valleys or up the steepest hill that they can find.

Anyways, there’s not much else to see on this street other than it being very steep but it was still quite fun to walk to the top of. You could spend all day sitting and watching people making funny faces walking up it or posing to take ridiculous pictures. It’s also crazy watching some of the locals drive up or down the hill because they definitely don’t treat it different than any other street, even though it’s incredibly steep, and I’m pretty sure that some of them don’t even use brakes on the way down. The best sight of the day, however, was when we saw an enormous man with a thin moustache driving down Baldwin street on a moped. Enough said!

It’s also funny because all of the streets in this particular area of Dunedin are incredibly steep, but because they’re not quite the steepest in the world, no one really cares about them. The second steepest street in the world just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it I guess. 

Lunch at Jitsu:

There’s not much to tell here, and I didn’t even think to take any pictures of the restaurant, but everyone loves a good lunch or supper recommendation, so here’s mine. It’s actually a recommendation that a friend from work told me about so now I’m putting it into your hands.

Jitsu is a Japanese restaurant that is close to everything in downtown Dunedin, but has amazing food and is very reasonably priced. I would recommend the Gyoza and the Katsu Curry. I’m not huge on fishy flavours so if you’re the same, you can’t go wrong with these. It’s also very reasonable priced and is about 10 or 12 dollars a dish.

Other Quick Stops:

The rest of the places that we checked out in Dunedin were mostly quick stops, so I thought I’d lump them all together into one. We did some shopping (which as every male knows is less than eventful). Luckily for me, Hilary feels the same way so this was very brief and to the point.

I did however stop in at a few bike shops which was awesome. The guys at the shop that I work at in Wanaka know several of the shop owners in Dunedin so I said some “hello’s” and checked out a lot of bikes and gear that could easily fill 10 years worth of Christmas wish lists. 

We stopped in at the Cadbury factory as well and, even though we didn’t do any tours, just walking through the entrance feels like you’re walking in to meet Willy Wonka. From the outside, however, it just looks like any other run down factory. They do, however, have some of the best flavours of Cadbury chocolate here in New Zealand and you can get huge chocolate bars for less than three dollars, so I was pretty excited to see the factory.

 

We also stopped at the Dunedin train station which is quite a cool building and looks like a giant gingerbread house. You can also walk around a bit inside, but otherwise there isn’t too much to see. I’m sure that there are some interesting facts about the train station that I don’t know about but as far as I know, it was one of the first in the country and has always been one of the most important.

Our last stop of the day was the Otago Museum which is on the edge of the downtown area. Hilary and I aren’t big fans of museums but it was still nice to get out of the rain and warm up a bit while wandering around and seeing some of the Maori and maritime displays.

There is so much more to do and see in Dunedin that we are definitely planning to return. There is also a major mountain biking scene in Dunedin so we are hoping to return to explore so of the trails.

 

Side Story: Lake Alta and the Remarkable Ski Field

I also had to quickly make an honourable mention for a quick trip that we made to Queenstown a few weeks before heading down to Dunedin. We only had one day off together and wanted to go to Queenstown to shop at Pak n’ Save and the Warehouse because they’re so awesome. And while we were there we drove to the top of the Remarkables Ski Field, which in itself is an experience.

The road to the Remarkables winds around the edge of a mountain called Double Cone and takes you about three quarters of the way to the top of the peak. Because New Zealand is so low in altitude, snow only reaches the tops of the peaks and rarely makes it to the bases of the mountains. Therefore, all of the ski fields start high up on the peaks which requires driving to where the snow-line begins.

Anyways, at the top of the ski field, there is a walking track that takes you to a small alpine lake called Lake Alta. It was only a 30 minute walk, but it was a really cool location and the lake is tucked just below the two peaks of double cone. I hadn’t mentioned this quick walk in any earlier posts so I thought I would just chuck it in here quick. I also get to do whatever I want around here so I can do things like that. Thanks for reading!