Dunedin

Dunedin Train Station
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Dunedin is a charming city with lots of European charm. I felt as if I were in Ireland or Scotland! The center of the city is an octagon in plan and the other main streets radiate off from this central plaza. All of the older architecture is definitely influenced by old world European styled stone architecture.

Dunedin has a great arts scene and I was really impressed with the art museum. They had a very impressive exhibit of Julia Morrison's work that captivated me for hours, and it was free! Bonus! The botanic gardens were also a very beautiful place to meander. My favorite part was the aviary, I love birds and they had some excellent examples of the many species that are native to new Zealand on display. Normally I feel bad for the birds as I don't think that they were meant to be caged but they had some huge areas where the birds were being housed and they all seemed happy. Dunedin also is a college city and we walked through the University of Otago's campus, it had a couple of interesting modern buildings but you could definitely tell where the students lived, whew! It's been a while since I've experienced the whole college atmosphere and I decided that I felt old! Linda and I treated ourselves to a dinner out at a really good Japanese restaurant for something different. I am getting a bit tired of cooking all the time.

The easy part of the bike ride
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After our day of exploring all that the city had to offer (or at least a couple of things that interested us) we headed off the next morning to pick up the bikes that we had rented to make a trip out to the Otago peninsula. I had read about the ride in the Lonely Planet's cycle New Zealand book that I found in Invircargill and I thought that I was up for the ride. Of course, not having done any of the other rides in the book I had nothing to base my experience level on. Fortunately the weather was great and the start of the ride was really nice, even though we were riding on the road with traffic. The road was flat but not straight because it followed the coast. It took us about 1-1/2 hours to reach the tip of the peninsula where the royal albatross colony was located and it wasn't until about a mile before the end that I experienced a really, really steep incline that I almost had to get off the bike to make it up. I was slightly concerned as I remembered the graph in the book showing much steeper roads ahead for the second half of the ride but I figured that it would be fine. We had to backtrack to a small town called Portobello where we stopped for some refreshments - not knowing what was coming. From the nice flat road that followed the coast we branched off onto the High Cliff Road. Can't forget the name of this road because it was aptly named! Admittedly I am not in shape at the moment but I now realize that the bike that I was on really wasn't geared for the slopes that I was trying to climb. It was not only super steep but it was a NEVER ENDING SLOPE. It took me 1-1/2 hours to reach our destination, Larnach Castle, and I am embarrassed to admit that I had to get off the bike and walk for about 20 minutes when I saw the road ahead and realized that the slope just wasn't going to level off anytime soon. Ouch. That hurts to admit, but it's true! Anyhow, the castle was certainly worth the ride, the gardens were beautiful and you had great views of the city (since you were so high up that makes sense, no?). How could I miss New Zealand's only castle? I am amazed that a couple bought the castle and dedicated their lives to restoring it as it had fallen into disrepair and had been abandoned for years. They did a great job fixing it up! As far as castles go I think that it's the smallest I've ever seen but it was still interesting, the family that built it certainly had an interesting and colorful history, lots of people died in the castle...but there weren't any torture rooms or anything.

Lanarch Castle
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I had left Linda behind while I was trying to make it up the continual slope to the castle and 30 minutes after I had arrived at the castle I ran into her with the Aussie couple we had first met back in Manapouri. They had passed her on the way and seen that she was struggling to make it so they gave her a ride!! Lucky!

Well after my 1-1/2 hours of pain I had an exhilarating 10 minute super fast ride down the twisting road down to the coast. I've never gone that fast before on a bike and it was almost scary! I had an uneventful ride back to the city and on the way I stopped to watch all of the kite and wind surfers out in the bay. The kite surfers were really good and they were getting some great jumps! I still vow to try this while I am here! I also vow to come back to New Zealand in better shape as there are so many bicyclists on the roads that I am just itching to get out there! But on MY bike next time.....