Day 52 Dunedin and Moeraki boulders

On the road early, we had a short drive to Dunedin, so we decided to take a brief stop at a natural attraction called the Moeraki boulders. These are large stone orbs, some larger than 2 meters across, strewn on the beach. They are known as Ooliths- minerals form around a nucleating agent, causing the round shape. Over hundreds of thousands or millions of years, these boulders are formed. Some of the boulders had been split open by elements, revealing their internal nature, which was quite impressive- veins of stone and mineral interlaced in an intricate pattern. Think of an old soccer ball, where the seams are beginning to darken, widen, and come apart.- now imagine it is 6 feet wide, thousands of pounds, and millions of years old. Thinking about it is pretty humbling- it makes you just begin to appreciate the age of the mountains around you.

Visiting the boulders made me realize another thing that had been niggling at the back of my mind for the entire trip- something I had just realized. All of the south island (and you could even say this for all of New Zealand) seems to be run by Karma. The entrance to the boulders was a one dollar payment, put in a box by good will. Some hostels didn’t even have locking doors. People gave you the benefit of the doubt- hitchhikers were common and safe. Trust abounded, and goodwill seemed to ooze from the land. The realization hit me, and made me smile. I like this place.

Within a few hours we had reached Dunedin, which I was told is Gaelic for ‘Edinburgh’. The town is situated on a bay (a peninsula, really), and extremely hilly. In fact, Dunedin has the steepest street in the world- we didn’t have time to visit it, though.
Dunedin is quite an interesting place. It boasts a population of 122,000 people, but a third of them are temporary residents; the university of Otago boasts several thousand students, which are temporary. Many overseas doctors and hospital staff are also temporary, not to mention tourists and travelers that are staying for months at a time. Despite only having 120,000 people, Dunedin is the third largest city in the world. The city limits (from city center) extend 30 kilometers south, and 60 km west and north (the Pacific ocean is to the east). The result is a massive metropolitan area, most of it uninhabited hill or farmland. Dunedin is also New Zealand’s richest city- every bank, insurance company, and major national company began in Dunedin; because it is so rich, it has beautiful cathedrals. Most of these cathedrals were built in the mid 19th century, and are a result of the settling population, which were mostly Scottish. As a result, most of these churches are Anglican or built for the Free Church of Scotland- pardon the lack of knowledge, for I don’t know the history of the latter in the least. As I said before, Dunedin is very hilly- most of it is built on old volcanic formations- as a result, the city was originally divided by a small volcanic ridge, which was carved away decades ago. The result of the carving is that an entire street was left up 30 feet in the air- a special staircase had to be built to allow access to it.

One last thing that I found quite interesting in Dunedin was the graffiti- most population centers in NZ, even pretty small ones, have a problem with graffiti, but Dunedin is different. Dunedin has a good deal of graffiti, but much of it is creative, positive, beautiful, or even funny. Walking across the city, I noticed certain themes, certain graffiti characters reappearing. One (which I sadly didn’t capture on film) was a very simply drawn giraffe- it was only a yellow head with dots- I saw this critter everywhere- in alleyways, peeking out of windows, in small, hidden and otherwise forgotten spaces. Sometimes the giraffe was happy- sometimes sad, sometimes inquisitive. Other areas of town were tagged by an artist known only as ‘Jester’- his stencil, Banksy-style work was captivating and though provoking (if you don’t know who Banksy is, I highly suggest you look up his work). Dunedin also has commissioned some professional graffiti work on some public areas that otherwise would be boring, concrete and unsightly. Dunedin takes an attitude towards this cultural urban phenomenon that I have not seen before, and I loved it.

So, we walked around Dunedin for awhile, and that night decided to do a tour of the Speights Brewery. Speights is one of 3 or 4 major beer companies in NZ (and my favorite). There were 5 of us for the tour, and we were told we would be paired up with 2 random extra people. As luck would have it, we knew them! We got paired with two girls who live in the same dorms as we do back at Waikato university- this coincidence would be one of many that would occur in the next few days. After an hour long tour (and an hour of tasting) we decided to walk down to the city center, known as the Octagon. It is here that we encountered a strange establishment- it was known as “Probably the smallest bar in the Universe”. It consisted of 3 bar stools and 1 bartender- I could outstretch my arms and touch a wall with each hand. After an hour or two there (and 3 kilograms of peanuts), we left and walked back to our hostel, which we picked because it was advertised as having a ‘free ghost’. We didn’t get a glimpse of it, however, and went to sleep.