Dunedin (pronounced duh-knee-din)

We were glad to arrive in Dunedin, the biggest city we'd seen since Christchurch.  Sometimes you need a break from the bush to rest up, clean up and eat up.  We'd planned on spending some time in the city or its outskirts to work for accommodation since we had some time to kill before we were due to be in Fiordland for our hikes, so the first few days were spent in recovery and searching for a place to hole-up.  We ended up not finding any opportunities in Dunedin, but scheduled to work at an organic farm about an hour outside the city in a small rural community.  With that taken care of we took to the city to see what it had to offer.  

Dunedin is known as the Scottish city of New Zealand.  The majority of the original inhabitants of the city were from lowland Scotland seeking asylum from religious persecution in the Old World.  Despite the Dunedin pioneers being lowlanders, this hasn't stopped the city from branding itself with all the celebrated icons from the Celtic culture characteristic of the highlands.  From bagpipes and kilts to the recently defunct Dunedin Gaelic Society, the city certainly seems to celebrate its (ambiguously) Scottish heritage with enthusiasm.  Like many cities in Otago, it grew quickly during the NZ Gold Rush era in the 1860's to become the largest city in NZ at the time.  In modern times the city is known primarily as a college town (ahem, city).  The University of Otago is the oldest university in the country and when school is in session the population swells by about 20,000.  *(Thank you to the wonderful Otago Settler's Museum for all the rad info!)

When we happened upon the scene the students were just coming back from holiday, as we saw many an old couch being hauled across the busy street carried by a group of overzealous young adults.  There were two things about they city which we took note of almost immediately - the city has perhaps the most interesting architecture in all of New Zealand and the weather is reliably terrible.  Many of the buildings in the city were built in the Edwardian fashion (if you don't know what this don't feel bad) to resemble those left behind in the mother country and we didn't let the weather stop us from walking around the city to explore them.  The farmer's market nearby the railway station was an awesome chance to sample tons of local foods and even some NZ whisky! The organic farm we were scheduled to work for had a stall open at the market as well, but business looked brisk so we decided to put off meeting until the time came.

The Railway Station

The First Church of Otago

Downtown

Moving outside the city center, a tacky but fun landmark of the city is Baldwin Street.  The Guinness Book of World Records claims Baldwin Street as the steepest residential street in the world (some streets in San Francisco and London contest this).  The street has a 35% grade at its steepest point and is so steep that it is paved with concrete as opposed to asphalt since on the rare warm sunny day in Dunedin asphalt would run downhill!  Check out the photos!

Further up the hill from Baldwin Street is the cities mountain lookout, Signal Hill.  We were lucky enough to get one sunny day while we were in Dunedin to see the lookout at its best.