Dunedin - Day 2

[david63]

Fortunely when we woke this morning the rain had almost stopped, but it was cold - it came as a shock only being about 12C when we have been used to temperatures twice that.

In true British fashion we wrapped ourseleves up with what few warm clothes that we had and ventured out into the the great wide world - well Dunedin actually! Now I know that with the weather that I was probably not in the best frame of mind to enjoy this city but it does seem to be very miserable looking - but, and no disrespect intended, it was founded by the Scottish and in known as the Edinburgh of the South.

There are many really spectacular buildings around the city and many of the old original merchant/trade buildings - but why do these countries have to spoil everything by [badly] modernising them?

We started off getting our bearings and found a statue of Robert Burns, then had a great surprise when we looked in St Paul's Cathederal as the outside is what you would probably expect but the inside is both old and modern - very cleaver how they have managed to blend the two types of architecture. Next we venutured to the railway station which is impressive both inside and out. Unfortunately there were two Pricess cruise ships in port today so there were "day trippers" everywhere!

After the railway station we had a look in the Art Gallery (free entrance) and whilst I am not a great fan of art galleries I have to say that there are some serious works of art in there bu many famous artists.

As the day was still quite showery we went back for some lunch and to decide what to do next. We noticed that there is a house nearby caller Olveston which was built in the early 1900's so we decided to go and have a look at it. Off we set only to find that to get to it, on foot, meant that we had to scale Mt Everest - perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like it when we were walking up there! Once we arrived up there we were greeted by coach loads of cruise passengers on an excursion.

This house is incredible with so many things that were way ahead of its time - such as a generator for electricity and central heating. The house has been preserved in the original state that it was in when it was last lived in and gives a good example of how [some] people lived in Dunedin a hundred years or so ago.

I have to admit that the walk back down the hill was far easier than walking up it!




Source: http://pear-tree.org.uk/blog/index.php? ... Day-2.html

[GillD46]

Dunedin is somewhere I really want to go. My uncle, someone I never met, was a Baptist Minister there from shortly before I was born, but his letters showed him to be such a lovely man, and I know he was well loved in Dunedin.

[towny44]

I think we possibly went to Olveston on our Aus /NZ cruise, it was supposed to have spectacular views of the town, but it was shrouded in cloud the day we went, as indeed was Milford sound, along with torrential rain.

[Gill W]

We went to Dunedin on Aurora last year. I remember standing by the Robert Burns statue. we saw the outside of St Paul's Cathedral, but didn't have a chance to go inside. I thought the station was interesting, but mobbed by cruise passengers like us. We also visited Olveston House - I can imagine getting up those hills on foot would have been a trek. We also went in the Botanic Gardens. It's a nice little city, but not 'special' like some of our other destinations on that cruise.