May 29th and 30th - Dunedin

It may be my city boy ignorance but I can’t think of a decent explanation for what happened to us on the way to Dunedin. We began the day with a measly, makeshift breakfast that was the result of someone helping themselves to a few of the more ‘I bet I can take a little without them noticing’ items in our food bag. Dissatisfied, we headed about as far south as we’ll make it in New Zealand such that we’d bypass the main highway in favour of the scenic route through the Catlins. We’d made it about 20km east of Invercargill when we came across a flatbed truck, sans hazards, parked in our lane with a hastily paint smeared message across its back windshield; ‘’STOCK’’. My first reaction was that the uneducated sod blocking our path had, in his haste, misspelled ‘stop’. With no one coming out to direct us and no apparent danger up ahead I indicated right and slowly inched past the barrier. Up ahead on our side of the barbed wire fence of the adjacent field I noticed a cow, then another, and another. They seemed content on the side of the road, casually savouring the forbidden, untouched grass past their usual world’s end and I was equally as content to let them be as they appeared to pose no immediate danger. As we continued forward the number of escaped bovines increased and the space on the shoulder decreased to the point that they began spilling over onto the highway. Now, not being a Southlander, or even remotely close to a kiwi for that matter, I was oblivious to the protocol for this particular situation. Do I wait? Do I go around? Would they feel threatened and ram our precious Demio? It was a frail and brittle rental to begin with and would not fare well against an onslaught of enraged cattle so we had to decide quickly. It was at this time that I thought back to the word written on the windshield; as you might have guessed, ‘stock’ was short for livestock, and evidently they were having issues either rounding them up or transporting them to whatever destination they had in mind. Rather than react incorrectly and embarrass ourselves we decided to put the car in reverse and say to hell with it, we’ll go around. Thinking ourselves terribly clever we thought we’d head back into town, take the main highway for a couple kilometers passed Cow’s Lane and bypass it from the north, connecting up with the scenic route somewhere down the line. This was easier said than done as we found ourselves cutting through unsealed roads and forcing a bewildered farmer to pull his giant piece of machinery onto the grass to let us through the one lane ‘’road’’. By the grace of some divine being we eventually found our way back on our intended path with only an hour lost and probably an eighth of a tank of petrol. Within 15 minutes however we had again ran into an even larger congregation of cows who, once again, appeared to have no intention of moving anytime soon. Luckily a young lad in a fluorescent jacket came roaring by on a quad who seemed to be a seasoned veteran at cattle roundup. To our great satisfaction the cows were scared by the sound of the quad and began scattering for safety, though many were literally scared shitless and defecated all over the road in their escape. I’m sure Kelsey was thinking the same thing I was at that time; ‘’this damn scenic route better be pretty damn scenic’’. Scenic in New Zealand means time consuming, at least with respect to the roads. In order to build roads smack dab in the middle of these natural wonderlands they needed to obey the lay of the land, and the land is full of twists and turns. We were able to stop for some cliff-top PB&J overlooking a resort-worthy bay, but it wasn’t enough to justify an extra two hours driving time. Speaking of wacky roadways, Dunedin has its fair share to boot. I figured this might be the case as one of the city’s claims to fame is being the owner of the world’s steepest street. It seems that the original Scottish immigrants of this place wanted to take the best parts of the European lifestyle, remove the nagging issues and make a paradise in the Pacific. They set aside a parcel of flat land around a bay in the Otago Peninsula upon which they built ‘The Octagon’, an 8 sided city center where they constructed many expensive and grand structures. This is all well and good, worthy of many a photograph but the city planners had not been considering a vehicle filled future. The Octagon is the focal point of a random assortment of one way streets and blind corners. Any street with the slightest semblance of straightness is immediately twisted out of proportion to accommodate their admirable attempt at the quintessential city center. The entire city maintains an aged aesthetic with its muted colors and colonial villas which, while not pretty, certainly has character. Our first full day in Dunedin saw us up bright and early for a tour of the Cadbury factory. It may be that I’m exceptionally tall in my hiking boots but our tour guide was short enough that I feel safe to call him an ‘oompa loompa’. He wore a pair of purple overalls with pockets to the knees containing all sorts of chocolates which he would give away as prizes for answers to his random trivia questions. The entire 90 minute tour was fantastic, partly because it smelled like delicious chocolate the entire time, and partly because we were loaded to the gills with the stuff. We even got to witness the world’s only chocolate waterfall which dumps one tonne of chocolate down 28m in an old storage silo, merely for the amusement of tourists. I counteracted the copious amounts of chocolate I consumed for breakfast with a vegan buffet for lunch. This was followed by the Speight’s brewery tour in the evening where we consumed equally copious amounts of lager, porter, ale, and apple cider. Such is the way that I’ve been filling the void left by our many adrenaline activities; replacing free-fall with free food, filling my stomach rather than rattling it about. All this eating reminded me of a goal I had before I left; I want to run another half marathon! After some fish and chips in Akaroa, which I hear are some of the best in the country, I’m going back on my workout regime. It’s been a great vacation but it’s time to bring back my six pack abs and put away my six pack of Speight’s.