Dunedin and Central Otago

Dunedin was the only city at that point I had the chance to experience for any amount of time. I scheduled myself to move so quickly, I wasn't staying in any single place longer than a day. This only yields very superficial impressions of places. I should have learned my lesson in Australia; the places I enjoyed the most were the ones where I spent more than two of three days exploring. When I come back to New Zealand, I'll instead choose to explore a few choice places in depth instead of seeing everything for a mere second. Alas, this first trip is destined to be nothing more than a survey.

I couch surfed again, this time with Anni, a young student living in a large share house with five others. This seemed a fitting way to experience New Zealand's main college town. My first night, I joined Anni at a 21st Birthday party for a childhood friend. I had a great time and saw a bit of Dunedin's famous nightlife.

The next night, I went with Anni to a vegetarian potluck. For all my life, I assumed potlucks (at least the word, not the concept) was an American thing. I was a great multi-international group, spattered with people people from New Zealand, England, Scotland, Holland, and Idaho. I learned that although vegetarians suffer from a severe lack of meat in their meals, they can make one fine dessert.

My one day in Dunedin was quite fun as well. I started at Baldwin Street, the world's steepest residential street. (yes, even steeper than Lombard Street in San Francisco; I trust Mr. Guiness's judgement.) It sits at an angle of 19 degrees, which may not sound like much, and from the photographs, it doesn't look like much either, but once one begins to walk up it, the angle become high in one's consciousness. There are sections of sidewalk that necessitate stairs. I didn't find any difficulty walking up it. I had been hiking for hours a day everyday for the past two weeks. I did not, however, take part in my own personal version of the Dunedin Annual Gutbuster, a foot race up and then down the dangerous street. This seemed like a silly idea in the middle of the icy winter. One tourist tried driving up it, but failed partway and was forced to roll back down. A local driving Baldwin Street is easy to spot. They always started with a loud revving engine at the bottom as they muster up enough speed to get to the top. As the car flies up the hills, the various tourists walking up the hill or taking photographs fly in all directions as if the local was driving through a deep puddle of water, not Japanese people. My only regret is that I was not in town two days later when they have the annual rolling of the Cadbury chocolate down the street.

I next drove to the Octagon, Dunedin's town square, which is an octagon. Being the oldest city in New Zealand, Dunedin actually feature a lot of neat Victorian and art deco architecture, including the world famous train station. I stepped into the town's fantastic art gallery and saw a fantastic exhibit on contemporary Iranian photography, as well as a decent show on Frances Hodgkins, New Zealand's most famous painter. Though I'm not a huge fan of her art, she can paint one hell of a watercolor. (oh sorry, watercolour).

I randomly found a place called Tunnel Beach, which was highly recommended by Anni. I didn't know how to get there, but considering it was a beach and I knew it was South, I merely drove along with the ocean to my left and found it. The spectacular beach is surrounded by towering sandstone arches and sea sculpted formations. The beach is at the bottom of a hill, which is, as one may guess from previous blogs, a sheep paddock, then through a hand carved tunnel through the sandstone wall face. It was bitchin'. (I bringing that word back)

Next, I headed to the Otago Penninsula. It used to be the Otago Island, but the settlers pulled a Dubai (or did Dubai pull a Dunedin?) and created a land bridge by dumping rocks and large quantities of sand into the ocean. I drove through the beautiful rugged hills and bays then took a long walk through some sheep paddock to the chasm, which was a chasm. Kiwis have a knack for naming things. The walk continued to the Lover's Leap, a rock formation shaped like a...let's put it this way, if it were a flower instead of rock, it would make a great Georgia O'Keefe painting. An hour further through more sheep paddock and endless mud, then down a steep sand hill that stretched for a kilometer (I dreaded my walk back up) was Sandfly bay. The walk was well worth it,for Sandfly Bay is famous for being one of the best place to see a sea lion. The beach was riddled with them, sleeping in sun. I walked along photographing them, keeping the suggested distance of 10 meter between us. One suddenly woke up and seemed quite grumpy. It looked at me as if my photo taking was the primary disturber of its slumber. It then barked and charged at me! For a giant, fat sea creature with no legs, they can move quite fast. I kept taking more photos until it crossed my mind that if I was killed by a sea lion, I couldn't post my photos on my blog. I backed away slowly, to appear submissive. It didn't regard me as a threat, so it instead took its anger out on another sea lion. After an hour of watching them sleep, I walked back up the giant sand hill, back through the mud, back through the sheep paddock, and went to my car. I headed the tip of the peninsula for another attempt at spotting some penguins. After shivering in the cold for two hours, listening to children continuous ask their mothers in loud, ear-piercing, penguin-scaring cries, "Where are the penguins?" ("THEY WON'T COME IF YOU DON'T SHUT THE F@#K UP!" is not among the things I felt at liberty to yell at unknown children.), I gave up.