Travel to: Dunedin

Dunedin: through the looking glass

Even though it’s only about 3 hours from Queenstown, Dunedin hadn’t really registered as a “destination” for me. Only after I was told that I needed to go there (as part of the immigration vortex) did it hit me that Dunedin is a cool city. I only vaguely remembered it from my trip there in 2009, so this was my chance to understand our neighbor to the south(east).

Dunedin is a university town. Usually that means lots of students running around, but we were down there on a break from classes so it was quieter than normal. I wish I could have seen the energy and the bustle of the city with all of the college kids teeming in the streets, but I appreciated the serenity of the empty avenues. There were plenty of opportunities to take photos without interlopers, which is always a coup.

There’s a remarkable amout of history in Dunedin. Most of the city is undergoing renovations, highlighted by the maze of orange cones and construction vehicles, but it’s a much older city than I had understood. And since it’s so close to the sea, you get some of that frigid breeze off the cold southern waters. Without the chill, it’s a lovely city for walking – you could easily get from one end to the other without ever needing a wheeled vehicle.

We happened to get a great day when we headed down. But because it was a Sunday, many businesses – restaurants included – were closed. Fortunately, the cinema was open! Across the street was this stunning cathedral, which somehow captured the waning sun and the low-key mood of the day.

Emerson’s is popular brewery – many of the bars in Queenstown carry a number of their beers. They’ve redone the interiors recently, and you can now take a tour of the brewery, which we unfortunately didn’t have time to do on that trip. We did manage to drop some coin on some bottles that we don’t see locally and some other branded merchandise.

Something else that occurred to us on the way down to Dunedin… It’s a much bigger (and more easily reached) city than Queenstown! Their full-time population is a massive increase over ours, and so their services are that much better. In particular, we were amazed by the size of their grocey stores! Don’t get me wrong – we have large stores and generally we find everything we need on a regular basis. But holy smokes! The store in Dunedin makes ours look like Tiny Tim – it was easily 3 times the size, and we did about 3 times the shopping there. We filled the boot of my car with all kinds of things we can’t find closer to home, including some ciders that I’ll enjoy for months to come.

There are two routes between QT and Dunners (sidebar: I love the local nicknames) and we took them both. The road home is a little higher in elevation and more consistently at that altitude, and we saw as few cars on that branch as we did on the road down. We stopped a couple of times to appreciate the expanse, the cloudless sky, the colors… It was something else.

Even though we hadn’t planned on the trip to Dunedin, it was such a pleasant couple of days. I can’t wait to get back!