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Dunedin

New Zealand Travellers

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Dunedin is the second largest city on the South Island. It was in the centre of the gold rush back in the mid-1800s and it shows, Dunedin some of the grandest architecture in New Zealand. Buildings of note include the Railway Station and the University of Otago Registry Building (Clocktower Building), New Zealand’s first University.

It can be a bit of a culture shock going from the numerous small towns of the South Island to this relatively large city, especially when you notice the city feels quite Scottish. The city’s name, Dunedin, comes from the word Dùn Èideann which is the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. When the planners were designing Dunedin, they based it on the characteristics of Edinburgh.

 

Things to do

Due to its proximity to the Otago Peninsula, Dunedin has some unique nature tours where you can see penguins, albatrosses and seals up close.
A couple of tour operators are:
Elm Wildlife Tours
Monarch Wildlife Cruises & Tours

If nature’s not your thing, then there is a popular tour of the local Speight’s Brewery that runs daily.

Dunedin also offers:


If chocolate is more your thing then Dunedin has its very own Cadbury’s chocolate factory. Tours run daily but if you visit on the weekend you will not get to see any chocolate actually getting produced (the factory workers don’t work weekends).

We visited the factory on the weekend and although we saw a chocolate waterfall and were allowed entry to the discounted chocolate shop, we were left feeling a little disappointed. We knew we wouldn’t see chocolate being made, but we still expected a bit more. I think if we visited the factory during the week we would have enjoyed the tour a lot more.

We also went on a ghost tour, we didn’t know what to expect and while we were not genuinely scared, it was very enjoyable and the bit near the end (inside a library’s basement) was a little unnerving.

 

Accommodation

We stayed at On Top Backpackers. The hostel is very small and is located across one floor above a pool club in the centre of Dunedin. The hostel doesn’t have a reception, the bar of the pool club acts as its reception area. This could be why On Top Backpackers doesn’t really feel like a hostel, it feels like a pool club making the most of its rooms. Saying this though, it’s clear they have invested money in the hostel side of the business. The kitchen is large considering the size of the hostel but looked like it needed to be cleaned more regularly, however the toilets/showers were large and clean. Even though we were above a bar and pool club we couldn’t hear any noise from our room. On the morning we left the hostel, the receptionist was late to work so we had to slide our room keycards under the bar door, thankfully, we hadn’t paid a deposit otherwise this would have delayed our departure.