Dunedin

Dunedin is of course the Edinburgh of the South, with street names like Hanover, George, Princes and Frederick - they are even laid out on a similar grid to the Athens of the North. Then there was this chap, from Ayrshire, but an honorary citizen:


The names all seem to be from the New Town. It also has a big university, so lots of students and therefore cheap and cheerful places to eat:



Behind the university is a lovely botanic garden on and around a hill:


Not an extra from Lord of the Rings but a penguin as boy scout statue:


Also a good cinema. Saw Bright Star - a definite recommendation. Inside once very grand but now divided up into smaller screens:


The Otago museum was fantastic, free and filled a whole day. Here's a maori wood carving:


Also worth a visit is the Otago Settlers Museum. One room contains the severe portaits of the early settlers looking down on their descendants with a stern eye! In another section was a collection of toys including the rules to Little Wars, a role play war game, written by H G Wells. A committed pacifist he believed that people would act out their agression on the living room floor and so avert war - that was in 1913!

This is the YHA hostel. A former hospital and a real warren. Took me a couple of days to realise that there were 2 different TV rooms in the basement:

There were also lists of random facts stuck up in the bathrooms. Things like ' It takes an average of 7 minutes for people to fall asleep' or 'Hitler was Time magazine's person of the year 1938' (that one is true and it was Stalin in 1939!).

Scenery near the university:


The grand railway station. Not built squint, that's my photography:

A good city to visit for a couple of days but I was hankering after the hills so headed west to Te Anau in Fiordland.