Eventually she was successful in coaxing us into our clothes, and after a breakfast of a only slightly burnt omelette that Jeremy was polite enough to eat (I'll have to get used to the new stove, pans, and altitude), we set out into what was becoming a gorgeous day.
Dunedin reminds us a bit of the Oakland Hills; our quads were getting a mighty work-out on the 1.3 km (0.8 mi) trek down, down, down to the Octagon in the city centre. As you can see, I am already morphing into a Kiwi, using the "proper" spellings and units! All the way, we enjoyed the view of the harbor and 19 degree temperatures (Celsius, of course- that's 66 F for you heathens).
Our walk took us past the green strip through the city, within which is situated Moana Pool. We saw their 6(!!!) different indoor pools, including a 4m deep diving well with a 10m platform(!), huge water slides, and weight room. We will definitely be buying a membership.
At the visitor centre, which was unusually deluged by visitors from a docked cruise ship, we signed up for a two-hour bus tour of the area to get oriented. On this tour we learned many new and even astonishing things, including the following:
- Dunedin has the steepest (35 percent grade) street in the world. Yes, even more than Lombard in San Francisco.
- New Zealand was the first country to offer women the vote, and in Dunedin, the first public girls high school in the southern hemisphere was opened in 1871... purposefully before the boys school to make a bold statement about the importance of girls education.
- Dunedin was founded by Scots and features beautiful Gothic Revival architecture, including the Registry Building of the University of Otago, pictured here:
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