I first spelled favourites, favorites. I was educated in South Africa, a former British colony and I now live in Taiwan, where North American English dominates, so I often find myself getting confused between two ways of spelling the same word. It doesn’t matter to me, but it is amusing, especially when I question which spelling is correct, only to find out that both are acceptable.
Now, on to today’s post. After Auckland, we flew to Dunedin, the second largest city in the South Island, where we spent a few days with my husband’s brother and his family, before taking a road trip across the South Island. I will blog about the road trip in a later post, but in this post, I will focus on what we enjoyed most about Dunedin. We were warmly greeted by a herd of cattle just as our plane touched down at Dunedin Airport. The cattle were a mere couple of hundreds of metres away from the runway. This was the appropriate start-off to time spent in a home which was located directly across a pond – with stables just behind the pond, the ocean behind the home and very few neighbouring houses.
Dunedin city
Baldwin Street: The World’s Steepest Residential Street
Even though the road is only 350 metres long, it rises from 30 metres above sea level to 100 metres above sea level in that short distance. On deciding whether I wanted to put myself through the agony of climbing up, I noticed a 60+ year old Asian man in front of me. Pink on the cheeks, I made my way up. It wasn’t nearly as tough as I had expected it to be, especially since there is the option of walking up the concrete road, or taking the stairs on the side. Hopefully, by my next visit, they will have installed an escalator – then they can break 2 records, one for the world’s steepest residential street, and one for the world’s longest escalator. Someone needs to suggest this to the city council. 🙂
Baldwin street
The Cadbury Factory
Again, growing up in a former British colony, I was raised eating Cadbury chocolates on an almost daily basis. I love all chocolates, but I still don’t think any chocolate compares to the glass and a half. You can only imagine the joy this chocoholic felt when she discovered that Dunedin is home to New Zealand’s Cadbury World. Already, as we were parking the car, we got the wonderful whiff of the chocolatey goodness that was awaiting us. The tour started off with a short video about the history of Cadbury in New Zealand. We were then introduced to the different ingredients in Cadbury chocolates and taken through the factory to see how these come together to form our cherished sweethearts. We were treated to a variety of chocolates along the way to keep us energetic throughout the tour. Jaffas (chocolate covered in orange-flavoured candy) seem to be a favorite amongst the Kiwis. I didn’t try any, mostly because the idea of chocolate and citrus together doesn’t appeal to me. There is even a Cadbury Jaffa race on Baldwin Street, where about 30 000 marked Jaffas are rolled down the street to see which ones get to the bottom first. We were not allowed to take photographs in the factory, but I snapped a few of the outside and entrance area.
Sandfly Bay
I was intent on seeing yellow-eyed penguins and New Zealand sea-lions, both of which are threatened species. Who doesn’t like a wobbly penguin? One with yellow eyes just seems cooler. On our last evening in Dunedin, we took a drive to Sandfly Bay and made our way down to the beach. In order to get to the shore, we had to walk down a sleep hill and over a few sand dunes. It was such a lot of fun going down that we actually raced each other. Coming up was not as easy. In fact, there were a few moments where I contemplated spending the night on the hill and trying again the next morning. With every step up the hill, the soft sand dragged me a step back again. When we got to the bottom, we were initially disappointed as there were no penguins or sea lions in sight, but as we strolled further along the beach, we spotted one lonesome penguin in the distance. Yellow-eyed penguins are of the most shy creatures in the world, so in order to preserve them, it is best to keep your distance. It was for this reason that I didn’t manage to snap any worthy-of-posting pictures of the penguin. My excuse for not taking any clear pictures of the dozens of sea lions littering the rocks is not as respectable. I was so scared of being attacked by a sea-lion (which very rarely happens) that I couldn’t focus on making sure that they were not getting close and getting a clear shot at the same time. The result: a bunch of blurry sea-lion pictures. Hey, adult male sea lions can weigh up to 450 kg. There was no way I was going to allow 450 kg to get any closer to me. 😉
yellow-eyed penguin in the distance
Overall
If there exists a utopia on earth, Dunedin is it, minus the wind – it is insanely windy. The city is serene, laid-back and welcoming. It is full of opportunities to enjoy what nature has to offer, and you can eat a slab of fresh Cadbury chocolate while doing so.
Packing Bags and Plates 