Dunedin

Day 1: After leaving the boulders, we continued on our way to Dunedin. It was really exciting driving into this town because it was a beautiful day and it had some really pretty buildings. Since we went to the boulders so early, we arrived too early to check into our hostile right away. First we tried to find WiFi since we didn’t even know where our hostile was in Dunedin. It was also Easter back in the States, so I was planning on FaceTiming my parents. We finally drove around the city until we found a Burger King and got some WiFi. Unfortunately FaceTime didn’t work, but we were still able to look up everything we needed to do that day.

The first thing we decided to go and do was visit the Cadbury Factory. It was pretty cute on the inside before taking the tour. Courtney, Shaina, and I all love chocolate, so it was the perfect activity for us. Unfortunately since it was a holiday (since the Monday after Easter is considered a holiday at many businesses) the factory part wasn’t open, so we didn’t get to see any of the chocolate being made, but we still got to go on a shorter tour. We started off with a little video explaining the background of how Cadbury wound up in Dunedin and then saw some clips of the factory. Then we headed outside where we had to put our cameras away. We went inside to a little hall that had the process shown about how different chocolates are made. It was really interesting seeing the different ingredients like cocoa powder, cocoa mass, and cocoa butter, and how different amounts of each make the different chocolates like dark, milk, or white. I never really considered the process of making the different chocolates before, so it was really interesting. Then we headed to two huge silos that had been used way back when the factory first opened. We walked all the way to the top, and at the top we got to see HUGE chocolate waterfall. Our guide said that the same chocolate in the water fall just gets pumped back up to fall every half hour or so, so I know it’s just for the tourists’ benefit but I still thought it was cool. Next we got to learn about the different kinds of chocolate that are made in the different factories. There is the one factory in Dunedin where different Cadbury chocolates are made, there are two factories I believe in Australia, and one factory in England I think. The different factories make different chocolates and then trade with other countries. Plus, there are also some chocolates that are only sold in New Zealand and not anywhere else. It’s a pretty good system they got working. Once we were done with that we got to go and taste some liquid chocolate. It was AMAZING! It was already melted, but it basically melted even more in your mouth if that was possible. It was delicious. Unfortunately that was the end of our tour, but we got to grab our cameras and take pictures of a couple of the older cars that used to drive around town way back when.

Since it was still late morning, we drove to the Otago Peninsula to go and see New Zealand’s one and only castle, the Larnach Castle!

 Now, I don’t really know what makes a castle be able to be defined as a castle because this one does not look like the kind of castles I’ve seen in pictures. It was still really cool to go up and look at it. There was a really nice garden that was being mimicked by the garden in Alice in Wonderland.

The view from one of the lookouts of the castle was absolutely amazing, and we learned that that specific view was the reason why Larnach built the castle there for his wife in the first place. Then we got to go inside of the castle. The castle was abandoned many many years ago, and it was re-bought by another family back in the 50’s I believe. They fixed it up to look like it had before and now the family still lives in one part of it. The rest is where tourists can go. We had to walk up the main steps and then ring a doorbell where we were welcomed inside by a very dapper looking older gentleman. 

It was pretty exciting. You can choose to buy a headset that takes you on a guided tour of the castle and talks about things in your ear, but that cost money so we just took a pamphlet where we could read through the guided tour. We got to see a bunch of rooms such as a study, a parlor, a dining room, a library, a dressing room, a couple bathrooms, a room where the woman would have tea together, and multiple different bedrooms. You got to walk up a beautiful spiral staircase as well to get to the different floors. Then we got to go out onto the roof. It definitely felt really castle-y up there and the view was amazing. Although this castle was different than what I was picturing a castle to be, it was still a lot of fun!

After the castle it was lunch time, so we drove back down the coast to MacAndrew Bay to eat lunch. One of the teachers from Thames High used to live in Dunedin, so she gave us suggestions on good places to eat. It was a nice relaxing bay where we could eat our lunch. Very relaxing.

Then we headed back into town to go on a Speights Brewery tour. Speights is an extremely common beer here in NZ and I had never been on a brewery tour before, so I was excited to go. 

We began our tour learning about the history of how the factory came to be. It was a lot more detailed than our Cadbury tour. Our guide used to be a history teacher in Canada who I bet was a great teacher because you could tell how passionate he was about sharing his stories with us. Basically some guy named Captain Cook (who I think is a pretty big deal here in NZ) made some beer for his sailors/crew men to help them get the nutrients they needed while on the boat so they didn’t get sick. Then some other guy named Speights (who had a lot of money but new nothing about brewing beer) got together with two brewers in an “equal partnership” (although the man with the money was the one who’s name was on the company). 

Then after learning about that we got to visit the different parts of the factory where the beer is made. I was listening but I really don’t remember much about it. I know there are like five steps (which are the five huge tanks seen) with which the beer is made, but I don’t really remember details. We got to learn the different ingredients that go into beer such as hops and even sugar (which is eventually turned into alcohol). It was pretty cool. It was a very detailed tour and our guide was amazing because he just loved talking about it. We even got to learn about how the walls are made with these huge iron grids within them to make them durable in earthquakes. The building itself is made within a hill, so we entered on the first level, but you could exit the building on the eight floor if you wished farther up the hill. 

Speights Golden Medal Ale is their most popular beer. It used to just be called Speights I believe until it won the gold medal in a huge beer competition in Australia, so they changed the name to have Golden Medal in it. This victory was huge for the success of Speights over the many other breweries in Dunedin at the time because it gave Speights the spark to attract people to his beer. It turns out that Speights ended up dying of liver failure, so our guide told us that that is why sailors would buy Speights. They assumed if the man who made Speights died from drinking his own alcohol, it must be pretty strong (interesting logic..). We got to hang out in the room and try the other beers such as a golden lager, a pilsner, some cider, and a darker beer. It was a pretty fun experience because I had never gotten to do anything like that, and it was extremely informative which was cool.

It was finally time to check into our hostile at Central Backpackers (named I’m sure since it was basically in the center of Dunedin). We were sharing the room with 5 other people, so we didn’t really want to hang out there much. For dinner, we had heard about this pizza place called Hell’s Pizza.

 Their big advertisement at the moment is on pizza made with rabbit meat. They had put up a billboard covered COMPLETELY in rabbit fur that said something like “our pizza is as real as this billboard”. Pretty disturbing. When we went, we avoided the bunny pizza and just got the regular kinds of meat. It was pretty funny though because they had signs with the Easter bunny on them with sad phrases about how their being turned into pizza. It was an experience, let me say that.

Then we went back to the hostile and just chilled out and went to sleep. After waking up at 5:30 in the morning to see the boulders and then going on all of those tours, we were extremely tired. It definitely was a successful day in Dunedin and we got to check a lot of activities off our list of things to do!


Day 2:
On Tuesday, we spent a second day in Dunedin. We were able to sleep in instead of waking up at 530 like the day before, however we knew we had a busy day planned, so we didn't sleep in too late. We ate breakfast at our hostile and then headed to some shops in the Octagon. 

Then after shopping a little bit we went to the Train Station which was an absolute beautiful building. We don't have that cool of architecture back home, so that's one of the reasons I loved this town. So many of the buildings had this historic look to them that was really pretty. The train station is a working station where people can purchase tickets to ride around the area.

Inside the station you could obviously buy tickets and things, but you can also go and look at a free art gallery which is pretty cool. You couldn't take pictures for obvious reasons, but it was cool since I've never been in a legit art gallery before to look at people's work. You can also go into some sort of sports hall of fame where they focus a lot on rugby. We didn't go there because it cost money and we didn't think it was worth it. 

After the campus, we decided to go and walk to Otago University. It was a few blocks down and we didn't really know where it was, but we knew the general direction. New Zealand calls their high school "college" and their universities just "university" or "uni", so we weren't sure if we were at the right place when we found one of the schools. It seemed like it had more buildings than a regular high school would, but it didn't seem very college campus-y. We kept walking and eventually found what we were looking for. The college was really cool. It had really pretty gray-stoned buildings and plenty of huge trees. 

It was Easter Break still when we were there, so there weren't any students really walking around campus. Some of the buildings were locked, but we were able to find the Math and Stats building which was unlocked! We walked up to the Math and Stats Department and had a look at the office and where the classrooms were. We couldn't go too far or really inside any of the other rooms besides the main hallway, but we still got to look. The inside of the buildings seemed pretty similar and modern to how the inside of our offices and buildings look. Overall it was a really pretty campus and we were there at the perfect time because all the trees were changing color.

We were told that the South is known for their cheese rolls, so we went on a trek to go and find some. Unfortunately we were told false directions and ended up walking all around, but eventually we found a bakery that had them! Essentially it was like a rolled up grilled cheese with like a chive and onion cream cheese on it, but we were hungry and they tasted fabulous. After this little snack we went back to the hostile to eat lunch and then headed out for more adventures. 

Baldwin Street was next on our list. It is the WORLD's steepest street! I think they said it is at about a 34% grade or something like that. 

It may not seem that steep in the picture, but it definitely is! Of course we had to walk up it. It was funny watching cars drive up it because they just gunned it at the bottom to get to the top. There wasn't really anything to do there, but it was your classic tourist attraction (plus it was free!). 

Next we went to the Settlers Museum. It was a really cool museum because it started way back with the origins of people coming here and made its way through history. It was crazy huge. There were so many different interactive things people could do to learn all the different facts. One room I thought was cool was just a room full of pictures. You could sit down at a little desk that had a touch-screen monitor. Then you choose a wall and can click on any of the pictures and learn about the people in the pictures.

There were a bunch of rooms like this. There was always some video playing, some headset to put on and listen to, or some computer around to explore the different items. After looking through the history of the people and how the towns came to be, you could go through and look at progression of different household items and cars. There was a room that showed really old appliances and electronics, and then one that showed some older cars.

We only spent like an hour there, but you could honestly spend an entire day there reading about everything. We didn't really have the patience to sit and read everything, so we mostly just looked around. It was still really cool though to see the progression of different items throughout time, and it was fun learning about the history of a different country. There are definitely some similarities to how everything occurred in the past. 

After the museum we went back out onto the Otago Peninsula to go and see the Albatross Colony. We didn't want to spend any money to actually go inside, but we were told that you could go park up there and see them flying around. The drive probably took us about 40 min, but it was really pretty because we got to drive along the coast. When we got to the parking lot, there were some GREAT views! 

The water was really blue and pretty, and the shore line was just crazy. It was really relaxing watching the waves come in and crash on the rocks. Unfortunately, it wasn't windy enough for the birds to fly (because I guess they need wind to fly), so we didn't see any. However, I was still glad we drove out there and at least tried. Even though we didn't see any of them, we still didn't think it was worth it to pay to go inside. 

We drove back along the coast and headed to hot yoga. I have never done hot yoga before, and I'm not even that big of a fan of regular yoga, but Shaina does it a lot at home, so I figured I'd try it out. Basically, it's regular yoga inside of a room that is 105 degrees Fahrenheit. I was sweating before I even started moving. No talking is allowed inside of the room. We started with some breathing exercises (typical of yoga) and then we did some standing positions. We weren't really smart and didn't drink much water before, so we were sweating out like all the water we had in our bodies. It is common for people to sit down and just breathe if you feel like you're going to pass out. Many people did throughout the class since it was so hot. After the standing poses we did some stuff sitting and lying down which I liked. We were in there for about 90 minutes total. Personally, I'm still not a huge fan of yoga, but it was definitely an experience to have that was pretty fun. Plus, it was the first time we got to do some exercising on the trip which was nice!

After yoga we went back to our hostile, ate dinner, and then made a fort...yes a fort...in mine and Shaina's bunk beds. Then we just watched a movie and went to sleep. It was a very busy couple days in Dunedin, so it was definitely nice to have a nice and relaxing night! Queenstown is the next location of our tour of the South!

Oamaru and the Moeraki Boulders

Headed to our second location - Oamaru!

We got to Oamaru at about 5pm on Easter Sunday and went right to our hostile, Chill Awhile.

 Right away the reception guy started telling us things we could do that night. Most things were closed since it was Easter, but some of the things that you didn’t have to pay for were free…like going to see penguins!! He started showing us on a map all the different places we could see yellow penguins and where we could see blue penguins and seals. We were there at the perfect time for penguins, so we didn’t even move our stuff into our hostile before going off to try and find penguins.

We went to find yellow penguins first since they could usually be seen from about 4pm – 7pm. We drove through a little bit of the town which was really cool because it was really old fashioned. They left some of the buildings super old looking down this one street which was cool. Then we got to this cliff where the yellow penguins can sometimes be spotted. 

There is a shore line about half a mile long where they usually are, and then there is a spectators viewing stand above that looks down on it. The yellow penguins are an endangered species, so he told us that there aren’t too many of them left. Sometimes they are super close to where people stand and other times they are half a mile away and you can’t see them. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of these penguins. We probably waited for about twenty minutes before we decided to give up. It was getting dark, so it would have been hard to see them anyways. We were a little bummed, but we knew we still had the possibility of seeing blue penguins.

We drove back into town but went along the coast where a bunch of docks and boats were. There were a couple smaller piers as well, and we were told that along the whole shore line had potential to have penguins and seals. The blue penguins aren’t endangered, so we were told it may be easier to see them. By the time we got to the place with the blue penguins it was dark out. They have penguin crossing signs since the penguins cross the road each day. We weren’t exactly sure where to stop first, but eventually we saw a bunch of people standing around in one spot. We decided to pull over and check it out. At first when we got out I didn’t see any penguins but people were taking pictures, so I thought maybe there was a seal or something. Then all of a sudden a little penguin came out from under a dock and started walking towards us. It was so cute! It started off walking pretty slow out and then headed towards the road. Then another penguin came out and did the same thing. 

There were so many people there trying to take pictures and see them. They wound up together at the edge of the road and it looked like they were going to cross together. I don’t know if it was because there were a lot of people and they were scared or if they didn’t actually want to cross the road, but they stayed on the edge and didn’t go anywhere. 

Eventually we decided to leave because we were hungry, so I’m not sure what ended up happening to them. I love penguins, so it was really fun being able to see them!

We got Thai food (a first for me) for dinner and then headed back to our hostel. 

This hostel was really cool because it had different instruments you could play and it had a room where you could paint whatever you wanted. They provided stones, pieces of wood, frames, and acrylic paint to use. 

We chose to paint some egg-shaped rocks since it was Easter, so we got to paint Easter eggs!

Other than that, we were in a room with like 8 other people, so we didn’t really want to be in our room too much. It’s hard living with a ton of people in one room because you don’t want to take up space or be too noisy. Overall though, you get used to just moving around in the dark and trying to do things quietly. Plus they had a lounge and the painting room where we could talk.

The next morning we woke up at like 5:30am because we wanted to watch the sunrise at the Moeraki Boulders. These boulders are believed to have fallen from a mountain way back when and are now just sitting there. They are pretty cool since they are super round. It looks like they were man-made to look like that. Since we were on the east coast, we were told the boulders would be really cool to see at sunrise. The boulders were about an hour away and sunrise was about 7:15 so that’s why we had to wake up super early. We drove down to the path to lead us to the boulders. You can either pay like $2 to go walk down and see them or you can go park in a different lot for free and take like a ten minute walk to the boulders which is what we decided to do. There was a sign that said the boulders were 10 minutes away, so we headed down the path and came to the water right away. We didn’t see the boulders and it was dark, but the water was coming up really far, so we didn’t know if we were supposed to be walking there. Turns out that it was just high tide (poor planning on our part) so we ended up having to run across the water in between waves. It was actually a lot of fun because we kept running up and down trying to beat the waves. Eventually we made it to the boulders and were able to take some pictures. 

It was still pretty tricky since the tide was high, but we got some pretty good pictures! 

It ended up being cloudy, so we didn’t even see the sunrise which was a bummer. It was still a fun experience though getting up super early and then running through the water, so we’re glad we did it!

It was a very brief trip to Oamaru but it was definitely a fun little place to spend a night!

Road Trip Time!

Alright, so we began our journey in the South Island! We left on Saturday morning to head to the airport in Auckland to take us to Christchurch down south. 

We got there about an hour and a half early, got something to eat quick, and then headed to our Jetstar plane. 

Not once did we ever have to show any sort of ID, and we just breezed through security (didn’t have to take off our shoes or coats or anything). Once we got to our gate, we only had about twenty minutes until we had to board our plane. It was one of the smallest planes I have ever been on besides the one when I went skydiving and it was also one of the shortest. After take off I feel like we were only in the air for like half hour before they were talking about our decent. It was about an hour total for the whole flight which was pretty nice. 

Once we got to the airport, we called our rental car service to come pick us up. We started packing our things into the Ace Car shuttle before realizing we had rented an Amex car. We figured it out in the end and got our car! It’s a white Nissan who we named Fran (with a license plate FRN…).

Once we left the airport, we made our way to our hostile called Around the World Backpackers. It was a cool little hostile that was pretty close to the city center. Our room had two sets of bunk beds so we were in a room with just one other person from Belgium. We decided to do some exploring of the town, so we followed our map to the town center and just walked around. Christchurch was really pretty since the leaves were changing and everything was so green or colorful. We came across this old-fashioned street with a bunch of cute little shops. 

We did go to a little coffee shop where I had the best Chai Latte I’ve ever had in my life! Shaina got iced coffee which wound up being a coffee float essentially (coffee served with ice cream…who knew). 

We kept walking around and did a little bit of shopping in town. A lot of the shops were empty or closed. There was a huge earthquake that hit Christchurch in 2011, so the city is still recovering and under a lot of construction. Our hostile had a free BBQ that night, so we definitely jumped on the opportunity for free food! We ended up meeting some girls staying at our hostile who were all student teaching in Auckland! We ended up being on the same flight too that day and didn’t even realize it. Most of them were going to school in Indiana, and they were all teaching different subjects throughout schools in Auckland and staying with host families. It was so crazy to run into people doing the same thing we were doing. They were doing the Kiwi Experience bus tour, so they were taking a bus all over the south on their break rather than driving a car like us. I’m glad we took the car though because they had to wake up super early to catch their bus to the next location.

That night, we had tickets to a late night Improv Comedy Show at the Court Theater. We picked up our tickets a couple hours early and then went to a place called Dux Live for some live music. We went back to the theater and got really good seats!

 Then the cast came on and they explained how the show worked. Basically we were in an act with a crew like Star Trek in space and the audience provided input throughout for things they should do. There were four men and one woman in the act. 

There had been people from the crowd making spaceships, and then we got to vote on our favorite, so we were on the Spaceship Playschool since it looked like a little school. The woman was the captain of the ship, there was an engineer, a doctor, a man who played a bunch of different parts (not a crew member) and the guy who talked to us (who also played “the computer”). We had decided as an audience that the issue to be acted out on the ship was dirty dishes not being cleaned, and then overall a major issue we decided to use was the oppression of classes in our society (higher vs. lower class differences). They started off with their improv discussing the issue of dirty dishes. It’s pretty funny because they would just laugh at themselves for what they said. I watch Who’s Line is it Anyways a lot, so it was cool seeing it done live. Then we got a stress call from another alien species (we decided on a descendant of the lemur species, so this is where one of the crew members dressed up and talked in a really high pitched voice. The captain and doctor got apparated to their planet. This is where the issue of social class came into play because there was major class oppression on this planet. There was this Gorlac thing that didn’t say anything but just stood there and the female actor could not remember what it was called so she kept mispronouncing it the whole time. It was funny. The stress call was made because apparently these lemur species couldn’t bend their knees and had dropped their keys and couldn’t pick them up. It doesn’t make sense, but it was just funny watching them make stuff up on the spot. Then there were issues with a lemur trying to gain all the power from the higher class, etc. etc. and it just carried on from there. In the end, a lower class lemur tried taking over, then he came aboard our ship where he dueled the captain. She fought him and eventually defeated him and then she had to defeat the Gorlac. It was really funny, and I would definitely do another show like it! The cast did a great job just going with whatever was happening, and you can tell they really like what they do. Some of the things they came up with were extremely clever which is why I’m sure they got hired for the job! Maybe there will be another show going on the next time we are in Christchurch to go to!

The next morning we checkout out of our hostile and went to go find some Easter festival on the beach. We wound up at a pier that we walked out on. 

The waves were pretty big, and it was really relaxing just walking down it and listening to the waves. There was a guy surfing, but he didn’t do much. Mostly he just floated over the waves rather than actually try to catch them. 

When we walked back, the festival we had seen online basically just consisted of a ferris wheel, a couple other rides, and some overly priced games, so we headed back to town. We went to the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch which was a huge area with a bunch of trees, plants, flowers, and a river that ran through it. It was a really pretty place, and I would have loved to just go and sit there and read a book. We saw some HUGE trees that I can only imagine are hundreds of years old.

It was a beautiful day out, so it was the perfect activity to do before heading to the next destination.

Although our stay in Christchurch (the second largest city in NZ) was short, we’ll be heading back there in about a week!

Pre-Holiday Adventures

So I know it's been forever since I've last written in my blog, but I've just been on a wonderful adventure down to the South Island, and it was extremely hard finding good/consistent WiFi. Before I discuss my trip, however, there were a couple things we did before going on our trip.

One small event we went to was our school play at Thames. Thames High performed Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing'. I have never read the play before, and I think I went to the same play in Prior Lake, but I didn't remember it at all. Because it's such a small town, they only were showing it one night and they were performing outside. It ended up being kind of drizzly when we got there, but they had covers for people to sit under. About five minutes into the play it started raining which was unfortunate. It wasn't too bad, but some people had to move because they were getting soaked. The play ended up being really good. It is fascinating watching some of my students perform because they were really good. You can tell it's something they really enjoy doing. What they did for the play was have different people play the same characters, so it was kind of hard to keep some of the characters straight. Plus, it's a Shakespeare play so I really had no clue what was going on anyways.

We ended up having to move inside for the second half because it was really starting to pour and the stage didn't have any cover. It wasn't that big of a deal since we just moved to the main hall, but unfortunately they weren't able to move much of the set in, only the backdrop. The rest of the play went pretty well, but they had rehearsed it outside, so some of their movements were a little off. Some of the characters ended up missing their cue and then they all kind of did some improv which was pretty funny. Overall it was a pretty good play. It was interesting seeing my students perform because it's a different scene than seeing them in math. Even with the little mess up, it was fun watching the students think on their feet!

The end of our term occurred on Wednesday and our flight down south wasn't until Saturday, so we had Thursday and Friday off. On Thursday we met up with one of the workers at the school and she went through our itinerary with us. She had lived in the South Island, so she was helping us map out our route and giving us ideas of things to do. Then we went to a certain bakery that sells cro-nuts. It's basically a croissant donut. It was really good! Super buttery and sweet tasting and obviously terrible for you. It had been on our list of things to try, so we were glad we got it finally. Then we kind of hung out for the rest of the day until dinner time.

For dinner, Petro and Gary's son Craig was home (for break from working in Idaho), so he decided to take us to the Miranda Springs Hot Pools to have a "barbie". Now, our barbie didn't actually consist of grilling since we already had everything made. We basically just packed it and brought it with to put it together.

Here's the ultimate selfie on the way to the pools. They were probably about twenty minutes away only.

It was really interesting because it looked just like a water park would at home, but all of the pools have hot water. It ended up being the perfect day for it because it had been raining earlier, so it was nice and cool outside. I don't really know who would want to go and sit in hot pools in the summer, but apparently they are still open. It's neat because the water is from a natural hot spring like the one we sat in in Rotorua.

This is the main pool. It's not unbearably hot or anything. It basically feels like you are just sitting in a warm bath that never cools down. It is awesome.

Here is the "spa pool" which is basically a big hot tub that has jets. That one is hard to stay in for a long time because you get really hot pretty fast.

Here I am eating raw salmon. Craig and Gary caught them when they went down to the south island. It kind of freaks me out eating raw fish, but it tasted pretty good with cream cheese and crackers. I guess it's a big thing on the East Coast because it is like one of Shaina's favorite things to eat.

We basically just swam around in the pools, ate some chicken sandwiches, and relaxed. It was a nice way to begin our school holiday, and it was very relaxing not having to worry about anything going on the next day. I'm really digging the whole hot pools idea, so it'd be awesome if we had them back home. 

Friday was my super intense job applying day. I had applied for some jobs, but Friday is when I really sat down and looked at all of the ones I wanted to apply for. It's kind of a pain in the butt going through the same process over and over again, but I know it has to be done. Shaina and Courtney had both already applied for some a while back, so it was nice getting on the same page with them. We did play Settlers of Catan at night again (no victory this time) and then headed to bed to get ready for our trip the next day!

We've done a lot these past couple weeks, so I hope everyone is ready to do some reading in my next few posts!!