Blogs from Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

After dinner, a couple of us went out into the town to take some night photos of the city. ... read more

R: Heading south, we drove down the same section of route 1 we had previously driven up with Dave and Shannon. So we put the boot down, and were straight on to Timaru. After a short lunch break in the sunshine, we were on to Oamuru, known as the Steampunk capital of New Zealand. For those of you not familiar with steampunk, it's art and design made in a futuristic version of the industrial revolution using mechanical bits of junk, mainly. It's a very odd town. We headed straight for the steampunk museum which was filled with some of the most bizarre structures, statues, vehicles and even an old JEOL SEM (similar to instruments we have at work) which was displaying X-ray images of skulls when we walked placed. Some of the exhibits had come from ... read more

We set off in a full minibus and Rebecca, our German guide introduces herself. She's completing her PhD in marine something or other at Otago University in Dunedin. She's assisted by New Zealander Donah who knows everything there is to know about the Royal Albatross. As we're driving through the outskirts of Dunedin we find out a little bit about the town and its surrounds. Dunedin has a population of 126,000 people of which 26,000 are students at the university. The town was established in 1848 by the nephew of Robert Burns, Thomas, who was the spiritual leader of the region. The university was set up 21 years later and is the oldest in New Zealand. Most street names in Dunedin have Scottish origins because of the high proportion of Scottish people who first settled in ... read more

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 ... read more

Arbeiten Arbeiten Arbeiten... Ihr müsst euch das so vorstellen. Als ich in Schottland war, musste ich ja studieren, bzw. so tun als ob. Das hat wunderbar geklappt und die 4,5 Monate waren mehr Urlaub als "was tun" und hat mir am Schluss doch nen guten Abschluss gebracht. Kurz gesagt: Hier ist es nicht so. Ich finde es super spannend was ich machen muss. Ich hab euch doch vom Juwelier erzählt, welcher quasi mein erster Klient war. Der ist jetzt pleite. Nein quatsch, der hat sogar mehr Umsatz und gesteigertes Social Media Feedback als vorher (das ist dieses blaue Facebook wo alle eure Enkelkinder und Kinder sind und sich nackt zeigen). Und alles nur wegen mir. Mensch hatte ich Schwein als ich einfach irgendwelche Knöpfe gedrückt hab! Die waren sogar so davon begeistert, das ich mich in ... read more