Road Trip to Dunedin

Friday morning (July 29) Max, Ryan, Jessica, and I hopped into Max's car and headed to Dunedin.  It was a nice and scenic ride there - the sun was shining, we were singing songs to my ipod speakers, and we stopped at the beach.  It took approximately 5 hours.  When we arrived we met Ryan's friend Garrett and Jessica's friend Emily who are studying abroad at the University of Otago.  We explored a little of the city and went to an Irish pub called the Bog that night.  The live band was amazing!!  I discovered I really like New Zealand reggae. 

Speights Brewery

The next day we visited the Speights Brewery.  We learned everything there is to know about the history and how they make the beer.  Afterward we drove out on the peninsula which I already went to with my family a while back.  It was amazing again!  We watched the sunset there.

Otago Peninsula

On Sunday we went to Cadbury World!!  I love Cadbury chocolate and the chocolate factory was amazing!  As soon as I walked in there was a mountain of Crunchies.  I thought I was actually in heaven.  We learned about the history and making of the chocolate and then climbed the purple towere where we saw a chocolate waterfall.  It was so magical.  After our awesome chocolate experience, we went to Baldwin Street (the steepest street in the world).  We booked it up the hill in Max's car.  I can't believe we made it up!  We took some cool pictures and then I ran down.  Then we got some ice cream at Rob Roy's and drove home to Christchurch.  This weekend was so much fun :)

Cadbury World Mountain of Crunchies

Invercargill

Our wake up call was 2 am this morning!  We ran to the lounge, got the key the owner had slipped under the mat for u, and switched on the television to watch the Netherlands play Brazil in the world cup.  The Netherlands won 2-1 WOOO!  That was exciting!!  After a few more hours of sleep we drove to Invercargill and had coffee in the world's southern most Starbucks.  We also went to E. Hayes and Sons hardware store where we saw the "World's Fastest Indian" motorcycle on display.  At 68 years old in 1967, Burt Monro set the world record for the fastest Indian motorcycle.  It went 305.89 km/h (190.07 mph).  I still need to watch the movie about it!

World's Fastest Indian

Baldwin Street

After our stop in Invercargill, we drove along a scenic route to Dunedin, the second largest city on the South Island, and home to to New Zealand's first University, the University of Otago.  The name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gealic name for Edinburgh, Scotland, and it was made to emulate Edinburgh.  Here we walked around, saw the Robert Burns statue, and a piper!  We went to the famous old Dunedin Railway Station and the world's steepest residential street (Baldwin Street).  It was sooooo steep that the sidewalk turned into stairs and I was out of breath by the time we reached the top.  We didn't dare to drive our campervan up it!  We had a great view from the top and it was fun running down it.