Dunedin. Serious catchup

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25 April ANZAC DAY

At long last it's time to catch up with the blog. The last few days have been so full on that we haven't had time to do much else than drive, check in for the night, have a feed and sleep. Also, as previously mentioned, the internet is a patchy thing and very costly here.

We arrived in the beautiful city of Dunedin on the eve of Anzac Day (which is very big here of course!) and at one stage I even had patriotic thoughts of getting up for the dawn service in Dunedin. However, we had booked on the Taieri Gorge Train on Anzac Day morning and as it leaves the station at 9am we thought it might be cutting things too fine. Plus, it was cold at 5.30 am so we just pulled an extra blanket over and chickened out.

Dunedin is such a lovely city (Approx pop 130,000) and has beautiful old architecture and Edwardian & Victorian buildings. Often said to be the best preserved city of that era in the Southern Hemisphere and has a distinct Scottish heritage due to the fact that it was founded by Scottish immigrants and most of the names in the city are Scottish and some say, "more Scot than Scotland". In addition, Dunedin is a 'university' city with a large proportion of young students. Dunedin was first constituted in 1865 and is NZ's first city.

So, we opted for the scenic tour on one of NZ's best known railways, the Taieri Gorge Railway which operates out of the stunningly beautiful Dunedin Railway Station. This magnificent building is supposed to be one of NZ's most photographed buildings and we can see why. Hope the pics can convey a little of it's ornate interior which are Edwardian fixtures and Royal Doulton mosaic tiles and stained glass windows.

The train features some old carriages and you can stand out the back of the rear car just like in the western movies and photograph to your hearts content. Great for going thru tunnels and over the viaducts.

The half day ride takes you thru the outer suburbs of Dunedin and into farm land, forests, and on into the wild untamed Taieri River Gorge. We were amaxed at how the construction of such impossible looking feats of engineering over the valleys and gorges was achieved .in the 1800's.

Had a great day and really enjoyed the experience. After arriving back at the station we spent some time soaking up the lovely building and then took a drive (in Crowded House) out to the Otago Peninsular where we drove up to NZ's only claim to a "castle", Larnach Castle. The view from up there was spectacular with Dunedin sort of reminding us of a much more spread out Hobart BUT with some seriously STEEP STREETS!

Dunedin on Anzac Day afternoon was exactly the same as Perth, sunny, warm with families all out in parks and along the river enjoying the public holiday having picnics and BBQ's. Some shops we open after midday but not many.

Have kept this entry to only cover the railway and hope to pick up on the next leg of our journey, Dunedin to Te Anau next blog.

The pics are in a bit of disaray.....takes forever to edit & caption...you will work it out. Sorry if duplicated.

Cheers

A&M

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Photos

2 way car/train bridge
.............what the..??

Comments

[Rosemary & Geoff]

Whoops!! By now you have probably realised the bad weather is moving into the bottom of the south Island and they say the first of the snow is about to fall!! Don't know where you are now, but probably better to be on the move up the West Coast!! Good luck in your Crowded House, really looking forward to catching up soon.

[Maranade]

You are so right!
Left Te Anau this morning in rain and snow on the mountains by the lake overnite. Driving conditions not too flash until about midday where some blue sky appeared but the drive up from the turnoff to Queenstown had us "Oh ing and Ah ing" at the beautiful snow covered mountains either side. Kept stopping for Mary's photos and made little progress! We are now in Wanaka at the Top 10 and the wind is howling outside............Crowded House is suddenly VERY cosy and warm. Overnite temp is forecast -3C so we might have to snuggle up. On to Fox Glacier tomoro, we have just heard from the tourist info here that it MAY be booked our as Franz Josef is closed due to a glacier slide and is UNSTABLE!!! so everyone has moved down to Fox. Will keep you posted. Wish we had brought some of trhose clothes we left at your place, have been into a few oP Shops to grab some cheap jumpers. See Ya A&M