This past weekend a group of us traveled south to Dunedin. Daniel and I took the bus down on Friday and walked around the city until the rest of the group arrived later that night. We all got dinner at a restaurant called the Velvet Burger where I ordered a delicious grilled chicken burger with brie, bacon, and cranberry sauce.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early because we wanted to pack as many things in to the day as possible. Thankfully, the weather cooperated much better than we had expected. We took off that morning for the Dunedin Farmer’s Market. I always love walking around farmer’s market and exploring all of the different stalls. There were so many different fruit stands at this market (especially apple stands). Eventually, I decided to buy a lamb wrap for breakfast and then I split a pork dumpling with Daniel. I also bought a few pieces of fruit for the rest of the weekend.
The Dunedin Farmer's Market
From the farmer’s market, we traveled to the Otago Peninsula. This was an absolutely gorgeous drive, and once again I’m reminded of how grateful I am for the wonderful weather we had that day. We drove for about 30 minutes on the peninsula before getting out and walking to Sandfly Bay (thankfully, despite the name, there were no sandflies). We walked, or should I say ran, down a sand dune and ended up at beach. We walked down the beach and found a white seal and 2 very playful (yet still terrifying) sea lions. We walked around the beach for awhile before hiking back up the sand dune.
Pictures of Sandfly Bay
Sea Lions at Sandfly Bay
We made one other stop on the Peninsula, where we walked out to the Chasm and Lover’s Leap. Although I enjoyed Sandfly Bay more, the parking lot for these two spots gave us a great lookout over the peninsula.
View of the Peninsula
From the peninsula we drove to Baldwin St. which is the steepest residential street in the world. After walking up 270-some steps, we made it to the top. There are houses on this street, but I cannot imagine having to walk or drive up that street everyday.
Baldwin Street
In the afternoon, we toured the Cadbury Chocolate World Factory. I had been so excited about this, as I always remember receiving Cadbury chocolate eggs on Easter ever since I was little. The tour consisted of receiving small goodie bags of Cadbury Chocolate, watching a short film, walking around the factory, and tasting the most delicious liquid chocolate I have ever tasted. Then, they took us to the retail shop where we all went crazy and bought way too much chocolate.
Nicole and all of her chocolate
You might be thinking that our day must have ended there. But it didn’t. From the Cadbury tour we ran over to make a 5 pm tour of the Speight’s Brewery. We learned all about the brewing process and the history of the brewery which I found very interesting. At the end of the tour, our tour guide led us into the bar area where we would be given a tasting of all their beers. After teaching us how to pour the perfect glass of beer, the tour guide said (and I quote) “You have 30 minutes, the bar is yours.” And then he left. We were on the tour with a bunch of Germans, who darted towards the bar. They were having a competition for who could drink the most beers. One of the German women broke the record for how many glasses a woman had drank in that time. She drank 20 glasses. Thankfully (for my mother's sake), we could not keep up with them.
As I said before, we packed as much as we could into our day in Dunedin. After all of our tours and driving around the peninsula, I feel as if I truly experienced everything in Dunedin that I wanted to. Although it was a busy and tiring weekend, I am glad we squeezed everything in. The next two weeks will be a bit more hectic as I have a few papers due. It is strange that all the schools back home are coming to an end, while I still have 4 more weeks of class followed by a month of finals. Good luck to everyone back home with their finals and graduation!!
Miss you all,
Erin
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