Another hurricane-like gale here on the NZ coast. We got bounced and jostled as we drove along the coast and finally into Dunedin, a small city of about 120,000. The city is built along a harbour and the sides of a long-extinct volcano. Needless to say, it’s steep, the roads are twisty and when you have no idea where you’re going….! Even with a map it can be tricky to figure out where you are and where you want to go.
Attractions worthwhile taking in (or not) while visiting Dunedin…:
The Dunedin Railway Station – interesting architecturally. Lots of nice tile mosaics inside.
The Speights Brewery Tour – not just because it makes good beer but because it’s one of the last gravity-operated breweries in the world and because it’s old. Lots of nice gleaming copper tanks and fixtures. My personal favourite is Old Dark.
The Botanical Gardens – we were astonished at how really, really great this was. It’s very large, the beds are excellent and very diverse, it has an aviary, a wonderful rhodo garden and so on. If you visit Dunedin, you really don’t want to miss this park. Allow at least a couple of hours. Sadly, many of the rhodos were on the decline by the time we visited (Nov 26); apparently they are at their peak in October, but they were still very nice to see.
The Otago Museum is nice as well with lots of displays, but don’t go there after a day of city walking because you’ll be far too tired to do it justice.
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery – had modern art when we visited. Sorry, but modern art doesn’t do much for me, in fact, it reminds me of the debate in Canada over public funding for such stuff – Voice of Fire and all that.
I spent some time just wandering around taking pictures of interesting buildings and things that are different from home. It’s a nice little city with lots of green space and attractive old buildings.
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