S.O.T.: Dunedin

I did it. I broke my overall record of being away from home. Before, it was 13 weeks back in 2006; now it stands at 14 weeks and counting. If all goes as planned, I’ll make it to a year. And who knows, maybe I’ll go beyond. There’s a moderately priced champagne bottle with my name on it tonight!

Anyway, the Intercity bus carried myself & my older brother, Roman, to the town of Dunedin, a southern port city inhabited by approximately 200,000 Kiwis. Up until this excursion, the only place I’ve travelled to outside of Christchurch was Temple Basin. Unlike the mountainous landscape when heading north to TB, heading south along the coastline gives way to rolling hills of green grass, used for dairy & sheep farming. It’s pretty much hectares & hectares of mowed lawns. The weather was sunny & partly cloudy during the bus ride. Every now & then the bus would stop in several towns, such as Tamaru, and drop off & pick up passengers.

On the way, I saw some interesting stuff: from a questionable product to a funny geographic location. In between Christchurch & Dunedin, there sits a place called Shag Point. I’m not making this up – it’s really there on the map. Since the bus drove by at a quick speed, I didn’t get a good look at the place. Next time, I’ll stop by and see why it’s called Shag Point. Or maybe I don’t want to see . . .

The small Intercity bus station in Dunedin is located near a large Cadbury factory and the historical Central Dunedin Fire Station. After being dropped off, Roman & I tramped up to our hostel on Rattray Street named Hogwartz. The hostel is very close to the city centre and very well managed, with Internet access, and a large DVD collection. The hosts have two dogs: Asterix who loves being petted, and a black & white who hates it. Ying & Yang I suppose.

The buildings and streets that make up the city envelope several green hills and flat lands. Because of this, the airport is quite a distance away. The city contains thousands of bungalows and many of the public buildings still remain in the 19^th century. The bungalows make me feel like I’m in California, the Caribbean, and in South America. I never realized how well established the bungalow trend is in Middle Earth.

The city centre is known by a different name: The Octagon. In the centre are terraces where people gather for lunch, sit under trees, and listen to the seagulls argue which lunches should be stolen from unsuspecting Two Legs. Surrounding the Octagon is city hall, bars, a public art gallery, movie theater, and a tourist gift shop. Over the course of our stay, Roman & I visited 3 bars where I spent quite an amount of money on great beer, Guinness & Steinlager to name a few, and great appetizers.

I also decided to check out the New Zealand style movie theatres by going to see the new sci/fi flick Babylon A.D. What blew me away was the high quality layout of the theater. The seats are comfortable & wide, enough arm rests for everyone, and the aisles are twice as wide as in Canada, meaning you don’t have to get up when someone is passing by! Cineplex Odeon definitely needs to take notice and improve their theatres back home. The only thing they don’t have to copy is when buying a ticket, you’re also assigned a seat.

The weather was sunny and a little windy but I have to say that Dunedin is quite the southern city.
To Be Continued . . .