Dunedin - A licence to eat

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We left Cromwell over Dead Man's Bridge onto Route 8 towards Dunedin. The day was once again cold, grey and misty. Ho hum. The roads were twisty and empty apart from an occasional convoy of classic cars. We later learned that this was a popular hobby in South Island and there are several conventions where everyone meets up in their jalopy of choice to show them off. The journey wasn't particularly pretty, though we decided it would be better if we could have seen more of the landscape currently obscured by the low lying clouds. Ranfurly had a by-pass but we didn't realise this until we had driven through the town and out the other side. There were many signs there inviting us to stop and explore the amenities (there weren't many, but hey) and we got the impression that Ranfurly didn't really want its by-pass and would rather visitors drove through the town instead. I suspect that the sign directing drivers to the by-pass may have been tactically 'relocated' into someone's garden shed!

We stumbled across the street of our next accommodation, the Amross Motel, almost by chance as we entered Dunedin and we had to drive past it in order to stock up on our supplies first. We couldn't find a supermarket and the 7/11 stores that were everywhere in Australia clearly hadn't made it across the ditch to New Zealand. Instead, New Zealand operates with lots of 'dairies' which are almost the equivalent of our local corner shops and provide a small supply of the basics (bread, cheese, eggs, milk, etc). I could rustle up an omelette or something on toast with those ingredients and we checked in fully supplied.

The Amross is an independently owned motel run by a group of relative youngsters who clearly know what today's travellers need. Sarah showed us to our room which was lovely - clean and spacious, with a laundry available for those necessities and a fully equipped kitchenette including a full sized pair of scissors (yay, fringe trimming time!). Room 11 was on the second floor and had a small but perfectly formed balcony where I could sit and watch Dunedin go by. It also had a HUGE TV with Netflix and Sky so we took advantage of all of those things for the rest of the day, being somewhat disheartened by the relentless grey skies.

As it turned out, that was a good idea because the next morning we awoke to a strange brightness in the room that seemed familiar but we couldn't quite place. It was, in fact, sunshine! Oh my, that put a whole new light on things, quite literally. We couldn't wait to get out and explore and the depressing lethargy that had bedevilled us disappeared. The temperature eventually hit the dizzying heights of 61°F that day! We leapt out of bed (well nearly, I still needed that double-dose of caffeine) and walked the short distance into town, planning to do the city bus tour. Our walk took us past lots of Victorian/Edwardian buildings very reminiscent of home and it was a flat walking route which was lucky as we were about to discover that Dunedin is a VERY hilly place! The shops we passed on the way were very British in style and product. There was a 'Scottish shop' and even charity shops were evident, though they are called opportunity shops in NZ for some reason. The streets all led to The Octagon, which is the city's centre and was where the tourist information (I-site) office was located and where we booked our city bus tour, not on an open topped double decker affair but in a minibus, which was just fine as there were only the two of us and the driver on it.

Our driver was very knowledgeable, being Dunedin born and bred. He explained that Dunedin had been founded by Scottish Presbyterians who had had a bit of a fall-out with the church at home and decided to establish their own version of Edinburgh on the opposite side of the world ('Dunedin' is Gaelic for 'Edinburgh'). Unfortunately for the Presbies the Catholics were more fleet of foot and were the first ones off the boat so they claimed the hill for the Catholic church. Not a good start! The guide told us that Robbie Burns' nephew was one of the founding fathers of the city and the Burns' statue near the cathedral was supposed to be of the nephew but the sculptor back in England just happened to have a statue of Robbie Burns that he had prepared earlier so he sent that instead, even though Robbie had no direct connection to Dunedin! I suspect an element of urban myth to that story .....

We learned a lot about Dunedin from the tour. I won't bore you with the detail (you can Google it for that) but some of the more interesting facts probably not mentioned on Google are that, as a university town, 20% of Dunedin's income comes from students who have an annual street 'burning' event at the end of every academic year. Old sofas and unwanted items are set ablaze on the streets in the student areas and the roads are pockmarked with the scorch marks from these events. At least the Fire Brigade won't be out of a job any time soon but it can't do the environment much good, choking the air with toxic fumes. Dunedin is also home to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. You need a permit to drive up it (too many gawpers annoyed the residents) and the road had to be covered in concrete because the tarmac kept melting and sliding down the hill, collecting in ripples at the bottom. There is no school zoning in Dunedin; instead the schools are monitored to provide equivalent, high standards of teaching. As a result, there are no more desirable catchment areas than others and as a result property prices are much cheaper than elsewhere in NZ, even in the most exclusive areas.

Dunedin likes to claim many 'firsts' in New Zealand. It claims to be the first city to have a cable car that could go up and round corners, the first to give women the vote, the first to establish a girls-only school, produce the first newspaper, have a chocolate factory, art gallery, gas street lighting, university, botanical gardens - the list went on and on. We saw people queuing in the street outside Speight's brewery. They were filling up canisters with the pure spring water available for free from a tap there. It seems most likely that these are dedicated home brewers, though the guide told us that it is pure, untreated, non-chlorinated, unfluoridated water and many people prefer it as their drinking water. The architecture was mixed with a lot of Victorian/Edwardian style property mixed with some Gothic, neo-classical, renaissance design and some concrete stuff that wasn't wearing well - quite possibly due to water damage from the underground spring that provides the wonderful water for the beer. Ah well, you win some, you lose some ..... Apparently, the railway station earned its architect the nickname of Gingerbread George because of its chocolate-box style of build. It is, we were told, the second most photographed building in the southern hemisphere after the Sydney Opera House - I have no idea how they derive these statistics or how true they are but it is very pretty. The lovely filigree ironwork was evident just about everywhere, even appearing on relative new-builds, in recognition of the heritage style.

The city is relatively small, with a population of only 250,000 but, being a university town, the student element adds an air of vibrancy we hadn't yet encountered elsewhere. We were able to visit the university and it is a very pretty place, a bit Oxbridge-like in appearance without the dreaming spires. We were told that providing student accommodation can be a real little earner in Dunedin, given the relative cheapness of the properties to buy and the high demand for the right sort of digs, but students these days are apparently quite demanding and only want the best. The big Victorian properties are ideally suited to sub-division and we saw lots of evidence of alterations taking place.

We took the time to explore the railway station after the bus tour and also visited the Toitu Otago Settlers' Museum which provided fascinating insight into Dunedin from its first settlement up to current times. We decided to collect our car and drive out to the Peninsula, where it was apparently almost guaranteed we would see albatross. However, it seemed we were pushing our luck because we'd only gone about a third of the way up the peninsula when we found ourselves shrouded in another of those darned mists which meant seeing anything beyond ten yards in front of us would be next to impossible, so we turned around and headed back into town. We had a fish and chip supper at the Fish and Hook fishbar. This small family of fishermen catch the fish, prepare them, cook them and sell them and you never know what the fish of the day will be until they get back from the sea with their catch! It was a lovely, unpretentious place, obviously with the freshest of fish and well patronised by the locals and those in-the-know alike, including 007 Daniel Craig apparently who came in unannounced with his wife one day, sat on a bench facing the wall with a beanie hat on and only agreed to having his photo taken in the back kitchen so as not to seem the famous film star. We were neither local, nor in-the-know, nor a famous film star but we thoroughly enjoyed our meal there.

Overall, we really liked Dunedin but it is very much Edinburgh #2 and I can't think there's much difference from the original version, apart from it's on the other side of the world. Dunedin is hilly, like Edinburgh, and it harks back to its Scottish connections at every possible opportunity. Even the weather is similar. The traffic, though, that slow pace has to be an improvement on any British capital city, with courtesy and politeness abounding in Dunedin drivers - you go, no you go first, no I insist that you go - somebody just please make a move!!! It was like Hull drivers all over again, but never got to that roundabout stalemate with everyone politely giving way to everyone else such that no-one went anywhere!

I came across a diagram in the museum where people were asked what sort of things made up a creative city and what contributed to quality of life. Dunedin scored highly in all aspects and I could quite see why people wanted to live there.

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