NZ South Island – Dunedin (Day 7-8)
Day 7
We got up and drove off early – at 8:30am.
8:50am
We stopped over at the Clyde Dam. It is the largest concrete dam in New Zealand. I have always been fascinated by dams – imagine the power of nature!
9:50am
Edmund wanted to pick strawberries. But we were in the wrong season. We had some “Real fruit” ice-cream instead.
The kids had strawberry flavour and the adults had Boysennberry. I fell in love with Boysennberry.
Finally, we came across a traffic-controlled one-lane bridge. We are highly-compliant Singaporeans. We feel much more comfortable being told what to do 😉
After a drive of about 4 hours, we finally reached Dunedin! It was a lovely city, with many historic buildings. It reminded me of Singapore more than the other cities.
We went for a fish and chips lunch at “Best Cafe”. Unfortunately, the food was not spectacular. It was too salty for our taste.
We went to the beautiful Dunedin Railway Station, because we were due to take a Taieri Gorge Railway trip to Pukerangi (Return trip, 2:30 – 6:30pm)!
We had booked online, and it cost us $194 for the whole family. (We paid for 2A (with 2C free) and 1C).
All aboard!
Train’s moving out!
Simply travelling on the train was fun!
We explored the toilet too…
But the kids had the most excitement when they walked out to the platform.
I particularly enjoyed the tunnels.
But they were rather short.
The train ride was a nice time of rest for all of us, especially for Edmund who was the only driver for the whole trip! Thank you dear 🙂
All the males slept on the train ride. Tsk tsk.
I was happily making notes on the itinerary,
as we were at our halfway point.
Elias bought a really cool train whistle.
The view was beautiful of course, just like the rest of South Island, New Zealand.
The train simply went to Pukerangi and came back. At Pukerangi the train engine was moved from the “front” to the new “front”. Fascinating.
Elias went to watch and so he had to run back to our car so he would not be left behind. We were glad he made it!
I enjoyed the information panels at Hindon about the “Railway era”.
“The refreshment rooms at Hindon probably opened shortly after the line did. The first proprietress was Mary Ann Gridgeman, the widow of a railway worker killed in an accident. After his death she was left with nine young children to care for. One of her sons walked to Dunedin, fording streams en route, to purchase the first sets of cups and saucers.
The staff of the refreshment rooms were always alerted in time for them to get the tea and food ready for the arrival of the train. The engine crew of the ‘down’ trains would signal long and hard when entering the Ross Point Tunnel. This was the signal for pouring the tea. When the train arrived at the station, a billy of of tea and something to eat would be handed up to the fireman. The impending arrival of the ‘up’ train would be signaled by the barking of the stationmaster’s dog – a dog with exceptionally good hearing. The tea was then poured into the teacups.
The station staff would always inform the room staff of train departure times and the number of passengers on each train, and the train crews would return the crockery and teaspoons for the room staff prior to departure. During World War II, there was such a general shortage of crockery that the teaspoons were chained to the counter and an irritating deposite of 2s 6d was demanded of the passengers for the teacups.
The patronage of the refreshment rooms varied from as few as 35 in winter to 537, the record number of passengers on one train. The refreshment rooms burnt down on the 17 October 1949 and the cause of the fire was never determined. Subsequently, Middlemarch became the next refreshment stop. ” (Hindon Station Information Panel, South Island New Zealand).
Here is a piece of history on the Hindon Refreshment room – a fight that happened there in 1915. Here is another piece of history, about the NSW Railway Refreshment Rooms.
After we returned, we took some more photos of the Railway station, interior and exterior. We were told that this is supposedly the second most photographed place in the world, after the Sydney Opera House. It was not surprising.
Day 8
We had a late start. We parked near the Railway station and took a slow walk over to the Otago Museum, arriving at 10am. Entry was by donation.
The Moa.
Extinct.
This is a canoe – part of the Maui legend about how New Zealand was discovered.
We had the most fun in the Animal Attic.
Elias is a turtle!
And of course, any chance we get, we will try to take comical shots. These were taken in the Nature gallery, a personal favourite.
We had lunch at Subway in a food court in one of the malls. It reminded me of Scotts Picnic. Goodness, that was so long ago… We were too shy to take photos – we did not want to appear too touristy…
It was graduation day for the University of Otago, and the graduates strolled down the streets. It was quite exciting.
After that, we went over to the Cadbury World for a tour at 2pm.
We were not allowed to take photos during the tour.
This was before we had to keep our personal belongings
including our camera, in a locker.
The tour was fun! It’s like being Charlie in the chocolate factory. For chocolate lovers like us, it was great.
After the tour!
Belly full of chocolates.
Samuel stored his loot inside his little Singapore Airlines lunchbox
We finished the tour and buying the chocolates at 4pm. and walked around in the Dunedin city.
Boy was I delighted to come upon these drawings!
Of course I had to get the boys to take photo with them.
We had an early dinner at 5:30pm.
I liked the restaurant.
We watched old Music videos, like Aha’s “Take me on”
Can you imagine??
The last time I saw it was when I was in secondary school, more than 25 years ago!
After that, we went to Balwin Street, the steepest street in the world!
Tada!
We were going to climb this! It proved to be more difficult than we thought it would be. I was so fearful that I would lose my balance and roll down the slope. I wondered how it felt like to drive up. I shudder at the thought of it.. imagine if I had to do it with manual gear… Eeks…
A well-deserved rest.
After that we went to top-up petrol, and had some ice-cream.
That’s where I found the Kapiti Boysenberry Ice-cream!
Heavenly!
We were planning to head back to the Holiday Park when the friendly gentleman at the petrol kiosk recommended that we go to the Signal Hill Lookout.
Thank you Sir!
It was beautiful.
Oh how I love daylight savings.
This was taken at 8pm.
By the time we went back to the Dunedin Holiday Park it was about 8:30pm.
Go back to Day 6 : Wanaka and Queenstown
Read about Day 9-10 : Otago Peninsula, Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook
Return to New Zealand, South Island : Overview
