Dunedin, the old Gaelic word for Edinburgh, is home to the
University of Otago, one of New Zealand’s largest universities with 25,000
enrolled students. We settled in at the Dunedin Holiday Park. A bus to downtown stops right outside the
gate making this an ideal place for us to stay. On our way to the holiday park
we drove through the downtown area and quickly realized that there was no suitable
place to park the campervan and explore the city.
Being on an extended vacation does not mean there are no
chores to be done and, luckily for us, each holiday park in New Zealand has
laundry facilities. They are a tad pricey by American standards but when you
need clean clothes, you need clean clothes.
While the laundry was being done, we planned our visit to downtown
Dunedin.
The bus took a circuitous route through quaint neighborhoods
before arriving at the Octagon section of downtown. The Octagon is dominated by the towering St.
Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. A short walk
from there down Princes Street took us by a yarn shop and, of course, I had to
stop in to peruse the beautiful wool and alpaca yarns. Surprisingly, the young sales clerk was from
Montana! But that was not nearly as
surprising as meeting the sales clerk at Cadbury World’s Chocolate Shop – she
was a native of Santa Monica who vacationed as a teen in Virginia Beach. She asked if we were familiar with the
Willets Furniture Store on Virginia Beach Boulevard!!!
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| St. Paul's Cathedral |
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| Iconic Railway Station in Dunedin |
We next visited the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum to get some perspective
on the history of this area of New Zealand.
Dunedin was settled by whalers, Chinese gold miners and migrants from
Scotland who arrived in 1848. These
people all intermingled with the Maoris.
The museum covered the time period beginning with the Maori cultural
roots all the way to present day Dunedin.
It is difficult to follow the history of the Maoris and all of their
legends as their words and names are of Polynesian origin. With lots of vowels, these words seemed
unpronounceable to us. By the time we
were finished wandering through the whole museum attempting to make sense of
some of what we saw and read, we were definitely in need of liquid
refreshment. A stop at the Fish Hook
Restaurant for fish and chips was followed by a stop at Speights Ale House on
Rattray Street to sample the local brew made here since 1876.
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| Otago Harbour |
Dunedin is also the gateway to the scenic Otago
Peninsula. At the peninsula’s end is
Taiaroa Head, home to the world’s only mainland Royal Albatross colony. The ‘short scenic drive from Dunedin’
described in the tourist brochures is, in reality, a harrowing, shore-hugging uphill
drive along a very, very narrow twisting roadway with no guard rails for
protection against careening into Otago Harbour. I think the scenery was beautiful but for
most of the drive I was too busy watching the view from the side view mirror of
the campervan as we straddled the white line inches from the edge of the
roadway. The ride back downhill to
Dunedin was not much less of a nail biter – we were now sharing the lane with
bicyclists and, instead of hugging the shoreline, we were hugging the
intimidating rocky hillside. Frank
remained cool, calm and collected the whole way. However, unbeknownst to me, Arlo Guthrie’s The Motorcycle Song was going through
his head – you know, the one that goes something like “. . .riding my
motorcycle down the mountain. . .luckily I didn’t crash into the mountain, I
went over the cliff. . .”
Taiaroa Head, known as Pukekura by the Maori, served as a
fortified village for the tribes who settled along the peninsula. Now it is home to the only mainland Royal
Albatross Colony in the world. Typically
the albatross establish their colonies on very isolated islands uninhabited by
man. But the first albatross egg was laid here at Taiaroa Head in 1920 and in
2007, the 500th chick was hatched.
As adults, these massive birds stand three feet tall and have a wingspan
of 9.5 feet. When on land, their wings
fold in much like the wings of navy jets on an aircraft carrier! At about seven months old the chicks fledge,
taking their very first flight away from the colony. They have barely moved up until that point,
yet this first flight will take them away from Taiaroa Head for four to five
years! This time will be spent entirely
at sea and they will not touch any
land again until they return here to mate.
From the visitor center viewing area, we observed three
chicks on the verge of fledging. For now
they were content to just hang out on the windswept hillside above the nesting
area of hundreds of Stewart Island shags, a relative of the cormorant. Soon we were graced with the appearance of an
adult albatross gliding on the air currents and coming right towards the
viewing area. It made several swooping
passes overhead but never landed while we were watching. It was an incredible sight.
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| The Royal Albatross is a massive bird! |
After a long drive along the Southern Scenic Route through
emerald green rolling hills dotted with sheep and over several one-lane
bridges, through the small towns of Balclutha and Owaka , we saw that we were
running low on diesel. We did not expect
any problem finding a petrol station but there were none in sight on this lonely
stretch of road and both of us were silently calculating how much diesel we
would need to get back to Owaka where we last saw fuel. (And since we were down to 2/10 of a tank and
the heater would only run if we had ¼ of
a tank, it was gonna be a cold, cold night.) We decided to keep going
for a while longer and soon pulled into Papatowai at 5:15 – just in the nick of
time since the tiny petrol station there was set to close at 5:30. What luck!!
Our Department of Conservation campsite was located just down the road
and we settled in for the evening. We
had a beautiful view of the night sky and, despite the illumination from a
nearly full moon, I easily spotted the Southern Cross – thank you, Mt. John
Observatory guides!
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| Along the Southern Scenic Route on the way to Papatowai |
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