Term Break – First Stop Dunedin

All public schools in New Zealand are on the same calendar, so every child between the ages of 5 and 17 is on term break for the two weeks after Easter. For many families, that just means time off from the daily grind of getting kids to school each day. BUT, for the Kumlers it means – Road Trip!

Our road trip is around the southern part of the South Island, much of which Mark and I have never visited. The first stop was Dunedin. This city, founded by Scots, lies 360 kilometres south of Christchurch. We arrived on Monday evening with just enough daylight hours to walk up Baldwin Street, “the World’s Steepest Street” according to the Guiness Book of World Records.

It’s an impressive street that over a length 161.2 metres climbs 47.2 vertical metres. That’s an average gradient of 1 in 3.41. We all made it without too much trouble and it sure was fun.

Our next day in Dunedin involved a tour around the Otago Peninsula. We stopped at a wool shop, Clifton Wool ‘N’ Things, which might have come straight out of the late 1800’s. There were several shades of hand spun, un-dyed wool, ranging from ebony to ivory (literally the names given by the sellers). I bought several hanks in 3 shades of wool with which to knit a blanket, Margaret and William both bought small skeins of wool that they’re going to learn to knit with, and Mark and Ben both bought lovely wool gloves (something that I would have found too challenging to attempt). Plus we got to meet the sheep that contributed the wool! We then stopped at New Zealand’s only castle.

Larnach Castle is really a mansion built by an Australian tycoon in the late 1800’s. Today it is still privately owned, but by a different family, and is open to the public for tours. The rest of our time on the peninsula was spent driving to points of interest and taking a few short tramps. After appreciating the small bays and inlets, the gorgeous beaches, and dramatic cliffs down to ocean, we hurried back to Dunedin for our scheduled Speights Brewery tour. As far as brewery tours go, this one was quite good. Mark and I enjoyed sampling the many varieties of beer at the end of the tour, while the kids enjoyed sampling “Old Dark” ice cream. The only disappointing part was finding out which big conglomerates own which many brands of beer.
Our final bit of time in Dunedin was spent at Cadbury World (a chocolate factory). Although we were only allowed on a shortened tour due to the fact that the company was servicing their equipment, we all enjoyed our Willy Wonka-like experience. The tour even features a 10-metre high, 1 ton chocolate waterfall.