A Day in Dunedin

A day in Doonadin. That's how Gord pronounced Dunedin when he first learned the Sth African cricket team was to be in New Zealand at the same time we were to be. It still makes me smile, Dunedin will always be Doonadin to me. As it happened our itinerary had us in Dunedin on the 8th of March, leaving on the 9th for Lake Takitipu.

We flew out of Melbourne on 28 Feb at 12.10am after Rob kindly came to Gembrook to take us and luggage to the airport. Thanks to Rob it was all quite painless as we had checked in on line and had dinner at home relaxed and ready for our expedition.

The flight was easy and uneventful. I dozed for an hour or so, Lib didn't sleep at all, she has trouble sleeping on planes. Touchdown in Christchurch was 5.20am, we were at the Avis desk shortly after 6am to do the payment for our hire car. It was a RAV 4, nearly brand new. It was still dark as we loaded into the car and tried to figure out where to go from a tiny tourist map of Christchurch The RAV 4 didn't have a GPS.

Out onto the road we took a leftie to check out where our accommodation was that night, Peppers Clearwater resort, quite close, just a few k's from the airport. Dawn rose while we found our way. It seemed very quiet and remote at that hour but at least we knew where we had to come back to at some point after the 2pm check in. Back past the airport we went to work our way into Christchurch in the the now peak hour traffic, nothing like that of Melbourne but daunting enough for driver Carey who had little notion of where he was going, with navigator Libby, hopeless, and totally useless with no sleep.

I followed the flow of vehicles into the city and we did a couple of circuits of the city through all the roadworks and reconstruction post earthquake. Signage was poor and detours and witches hats and barriers were everywhere. We could find no where to eat but a Maccas where we had a most repulsive breakfast, forced on us by early morning hunger. Eventually we found a parking area adjacent the Botanic gardens. Lib crashed, sleeping in the car, I took a walk through the gardens before I lay myself down on the grass in front of the car and slept and dreamed for an hour so. I'm not sure where Gord was but no doubt he was also recuperating.

It was balmy warm. After waking I walked again in the gardens, this time with Gord. We admired the wonderful trees and toured the museum and walked round the earthquake damaged famous cathedral. Back at the car park it was packed and crowded with incoming cars constantly looking for non existent spaces. Lib remained asleep in back of the car. She woke eventually and we left and found a Subway shop for lunch. We checked in at the Clearwater resort, a fancy golf course development with apartments overlooking a man made lake, and found our unit to be flash and well appointed with cooking facilities. We drove to a shopping precinct to buy steak for dinner and supplies for picnics on the road in the ensuing days.

Next day was a long drive across the Sth Island to Greymouth then south to Franz Joseph. Originally we were scheduled to catch a train from Christchurch to Greymouth and pick up the hire car there but the train was out of action because of a fire shortly before our trip. The scenery of the Canterbury Plains was absorbing, lush farmland with a mountainous backdrop and hedge trees extensively planted and carefully maintained, necessary to provide stock with shelter from the strong cold winds which prevail for the colder months.

Our weather was clear and mild, perfect for travelling and viewing the scenery. This kept up for 10 days. We were lucky to have clear vision of mountains, lakes and glaciers in very pleasant temperature for most of our holiday. After Franz Joseph it was Queenstown for three days following another long drive, then on to Te Anau for two nights which included a day trip to Milford Sound, again fortunately with perfect weather to view the magnificent scenery. This whole week featured mind blowing scenery.

Fox glacier

Near Glenorchy out from Queenstown

The drive from Te Anau to Dunedin was only a few hours, we had a picnic lunch on the way and found our centrally located hotel after driving around the city a few times and asking directions. It was a small hotel room with a double bed and a single in the one room. We left soon after checking in to find the cricket venue at the university oval and arrived half an hour before the tea break. Sth Africa was batting, opener Elgar holding the innings together well supported by 4th drop Bavuma through the last session.

One wag held up a sign "My wife loves de Kock", Quentin de Kock being the Sth African wicketkeeper

After returning to our hotel, Gord and I took a walk while Lib had a rest. We sussed out the 'Octogan', a sort of eight sided city square surrounded by restaurants and night life. It was really buzzing, probably more than usual because the cricket was in town. Later we had dinner in a Japanese restaurant where the food was first class. On an adjacent table were two brothers from Invercargill who were there for the cricket with two nieces. One of them had imbibed fully and fell asleep on the grassed area that afternoon and was sunburned badly. He now lived at Arrowtown, close to Queenstown, where is an electrical contractor, and he and we agreed the best pies in the world are at Arrowtown. I had lamb and mint, Lib steak and mushroom,and we shared a vegetable pie, all sensational. He said he went to the Boxing Day test in Melbourne and it was 40C and he nearly died. We said we went there once to a one day match Australia v Sri Lanka and it was hot as hell and we drank our water and the stalls ran out and it was total mayhem. He said the day after the cricket he wanted to go to Rosebud and caught a train with his wife but it only went as far as Frankston so they had a walk around there and he said he had never seen so many tattoo parlours in his life, they were everywhere.

We liked Doonadin, even though we were there for only one night.

Dunedin Railway Station