*Before you pass judgement on what is written throughout this post, let it be said that, during my time in Dunedin, I was full of cold, so my energy levels were not at their fullest. A large amount of energy is necessary for most things around Dunedin. There. Enjoy.*
Dunedin came as a strange change from Christchurch. For some reason, it is still sunny down here. I was expecting snow or at the very least a bitter chill but no. It’s actually quite warm, coming in roughly around fifteen/sixteen degrees Celsius (I realise that this is not warm for most countries around the world… but it’s pretty warm to me!)
Having said this, every night I have been in Dunedin, it has rained all through the night, and then cleared up by morning. How weird is that?! Clearly there is some Student God blessing the city with nice weather.
Dunedin, in case you hadn’t noticed from that previous statement, is a student city. One of the biggest universities in New Zealand is here (Otago university) and because of this, you have Kiwis from all over the country come here to study. Not only that, but plenty of foreign students live here, usually staying at hostels.
The day I arrived in Dunedin it was late (meaning about 8pm). Naturally, after sitting on a bus for six/seven hours, I had no desire to really do anything, so I just went to bed and generally chilled out the best I could.
This hostel was a lovely one (On Top Backpackers – dirty minds go crazy), but my only issue was how noisy and squeaky the beds were. If someone moved on the top bunk in the bed adjacent to yours, you still felt your own bed shaking. Safe to say, sleep was not my friend these few days.
Anyway, the next day dawned bright and early (at least, I presumed it did. I was still asleep) and I still had to decide what to do with my day. So I jumped onto the interweb (free limited Wi-Fi kindly provided by the hostel) and researched the top things to do in Dunedin. Two things caught my fancy (one, I will admit, I already knew about).
The first was the “steepest street in the world”. This is the one I knew about. And also knew this wasn’t strictly true. It’s the steepest residential street in the world. I can’t say I really felt like walking up a steep street when I was struggling to breathe already (it was also an hour’s walk away), so I opted for the second option: the museum.
As my family will know back home, I strongly dislike museums. However, when in Rome… obviously not literally when in Rome. I’d be very surprised if I’d managed to bus all the way from New Zealand to Rome in six hours.
As my family may also now know, I have a fascination with the Maori culture. To my great joy, there was a fairly large exhibition regarding all things Maori, so I had an enjoyable time wandering round here aimlessly, taking pictures of whatever took my fancy. What added even more enjoyment to this, was that the museum was pretty much empty apart from myself and the curators (at least I think they were curators).
Truth be told, I dislike reading information in museums. I much prefer walking through and taking in all the interesting and unusual displays. And when it comes to Maori art, I am pretty much content to just look and take all of it in.
There was another exhibition in the museum (that I mainly went in to for my mum and step-dad’s benefit) that was full of pottery.
I don’t dislike pottery, I just despair at the fact that my step-dad is an avid collector of bizarre and unusual pottery. Sadly, none of the pottery here was truly outlandish, but I took pictures of some nevertheless.
Finally, there was one more section that I thought was pretty incredible. It was the 2015 Otago Wildlife Photography Competition.
I actually failed spectacularly to take pictures of the entries, except for one… probably the reason I remembered to take a picture of this one was because its fantasy related.
That about concluded my time in the museum. See as I felt completely drained of energy, I went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day watching films in bed. Which I hadn’t done in a long time and it felt very pleasant.
Now, the next day, it was my intention to walk up the steepest street, yet I still felt pretty awful, so I had to sacrifice that joy (deep down in my heart I was pretty happy), so instead I just opted to go on a walk around Dunedin and try explore a bit more.
There is a very cool and snazzy area in Dunedin called the Octagon, which, as you can probably guess, is a collection of buildings in the shape of an Octagon. Obviously it is impossible to take a photograph of this, so my good friend Google helped me out here (the same goes with the cover photo).
I’m not entirely sure where I walked, I just remember that I passed a lovely cathedral:
And also found myself in a park where there was a large collection of birds just milling around:
Now, I would like to apologise for the almost dull post here, but there isn’t really a lot you can do if you’re feeling under the weather. Still, it is onwards and upwards (technically downwards) to Queenstown from here on out! Where hopefully I shall feel better… I seem to remember last time I was in Queenstown I felt ill as well… perhaps this will become a common cycle?
A Weary Traveller 