South Island Trip - Day 8: Dunedin

Dunedin is truly a lovely city that we very much enjoyed exploring.

According to Wikipedia:


"Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago region. It is named for the capital of Scotland, generally Anglicised as Edinburgh (with burgh being a literal translation of the Gaelic dun, meaning fort). While Tauranga, Napier-Hastings and Hamilton have eclipsed the city in size of population since the 1980s to make it only the seventh-largest urban area in New Zealand, Dunedin is still considered one of the four main cities of New Zealand for historic, cultural and geographic reasons.  The city's most important activity in economic terms centres around tertiary education – Dunedin is home to the University of Otago, New Zealand's first university (established 1869), and the Otago Polytechnic. Students account for a large proportion of the population; 21.6 percent of the city's population was aged between 15 and 24 at the 2006 census, compared to the New Zealand average of 14.2 percent."

The wards took us to Signal Hill, a high overlook spot where there is a monument and good view of the whole city.  It was quite impressive.

Next we visited Baldwin Street, famed for being the "Steepest residential street in the world" according to the Guiness Book of World Records.  It is relatively short, a little under 350 metres (1,150 ft) long, but it rises from 30 m (98 ft) above sea level at its junction with North Road to 100 m (330 ft) above sea level at the top,.  Apparently the city of Dunedin was carefully planned in England in a careful grid pattern with absolutely no consideration given to the local terrain.   When the engineers came to the island and began surveying what went where in real life they must have been scratching their heads, but they went ahead with the design.

The English influence is very apparent in the elaborate architecture throughout Dunedin.  We loved seeing all the cathedrals and ornate old buildings.

We also enjoyed seeing various styles of public art - murals, sculptures, fountains, etc scattered throughout the city.

After a full and wonderful day we stopped for a late lunch / early dinner at a local Indian restaurant owned by some people the Wards were friends with.  We had a delicious meal and good conversation, thoroughly enjoying the end of our perfect day together.  

After that it was time to get back to the church to meet with folks at the Family History Center for our last "official" work on this trip.