Otago

Downtown Dunedin

February 16, 2025 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The day we visited the Otago Museum in Dunedin, we did a lot of walking. We parked the car on a back street, walked to the museum, walked back to the car for lunch, walked to the Railway Station, walked to the Otago Museum again, then walked back to the car to go back to our friends’ house for the night. That was over an hour of walking! The little girls were getting pretty tired by the end, but they enjoyed seeing all the sights. We made a point of going to the Railway Station, even though we were there a number of years ago (see this and this), because Miss Joy badly wanted to go inside the “beautiful building” every time we drove past it. It is the most-photographed building in New Zealand, for good reason.

Here are a couple of other random beautiful buildings we saw while we were walking around the downtown area.

Trip to Dunedin

February 2, 2025 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We recently made a trip to Dunedin to celebrate with a friend who, after battling an aggressive brain tumor, is now cancer-free. What a special reason to have a party! We enjoyed the drive through the mountains; the rata is blooming the most it has in about 20 years and was spectacular. That’s the red flowers you can see on the mountain sides in the next few pictures. Rata is a vine that climbs up a tree and eventually engulfs the tree, becoming a tree itself and killing its host. The bees love it, and the beekeepers are quite happy with this season; rata honey is apparently something special.

One afternoon while we were in Dunedin, three families went to the Botanical Garden for an hour or so. The children loved playing on the playground and walking the tracks, and I grabbed these pictures of my girls on a giant pinecone. I got a few other pictures, but they have too many children from other families in them to share here.

This was an overview of part of the gardens, as we headed down the hill to the playground.

On our way home, we stopped for a short time at Moeraki Boulders. The last time we stopped there it was raining, so we didn’t see much. It was fun to investigate today, even though the tide was so high.

We saw a couple of boulders that had split open. It was very interesting to see inside them!

This boulder seems to have only recently washed out of the cliff. It was nearly perfectly spherical, and still smooth. For reference, Mr. Sweetie, to the left, is just over five feet tall, and Gayle is just over six feet.

I always love seeing the Rakaia River when we cross the Gorge on our way through. It is so blue!

I’ll be sharing more pictures in the next two weeks from our trip–there were too many for one post!

The Steepest Street

August 4, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The first weekend in June, several of our children went to Dunedin for a conference, a weekend of preaching, at a church there. Some friends from this area went along, too. After the conference, before heading home, they made a quick stop to check out what is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the steepest street in the world–Baldwin Street. It has a gradient of 35%–the result of following plans laid out for the town from England without taking local topography into consideration!

This one is here just for fun–Simon clowning around one of the evenings!

And a funny bit of trivia? Three of my children, two of whom were in the group that went to Dunedin, are in the United States right now. They had a 12-hour-layover in San Francisco, and a cousin took them on a short tour of the city. One thing they did was to drive down what is known as the curviest street in the world!

Trip to Dunedin, Part 5—The Miscellaneous Pictures

October 7, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

How would you like to live on a road like this? Our friends do! We kept the van in first or second gear to go down it!

I love the old buildings in Dunedin! Christchurch had them when we came here, but a lot came down in or since the earthquakes.

We still don’t know what the Chinese Gardens are like. It cost to get in, so we did free things instead.

Saturday morning we had to drive south of Dunedin to pick up a turkey Mr. Inventor bought to be the new father of his flock. This is the farm from which we bought it.

The boys were fascinated with the man’s junk pile!

Random scenery on the way back to the city.

In the Settler’s Museum. Mr. Handyman twisted his foot Saturday climbing Mount Cargill, so he was glad to rest awhile.

We walked a block or two in Dunedin after dark, and saw this amazing garden. There are two sets of stairs coming down the hill, making an X, with the flower bed in between. I think the flowers were pansies, and the green plants were celery!

There are a lot of stone fences around the area.

A couple more old houses I liked!

And a beautiful church.

I liked the bus stops, too. So much prettier than Christchurch’s glass and metal ones.

Inside the Settler’s Museum—trying to figure out how it was welded together!

I don’t know what this is; it’s on top of a hill between Oamaru and Dunedin.

This building is in Oamaru; I saw it on our way home.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 4—Inside the Train Station

October 5, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have never seen mosaics like on the floors inside the Dunedin Train Station. This was the center of the lobby you walked into when you went through the main front door.

This is the landing of the staircase to the second floor,

…and the steps themselves.

The floor all the way around the top was like this:

Looking down from the balcony on the second floor: The top picture in this post is the center of that floor.

The walls around the main lobby are incredible, too!

And check out the iron work on the stairway railing!

The iron work was the same all the way around the balcony over the lobby.

The rest of the artwork was amazing, too.

I guess these three pictures should have gone with the last post, outside the station, but here they are. This is a close-up of the sculpture on top of the tower:

Even the doors are beautiful!

These plaques are on the inside of each of the pillars in front of the building. I’m guessing that the pictures represent the important or outstanding features of Dunedin.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 3—Outside the Dunedin Train Station

October 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Dunedin Train Station is the most photographed building in New Zealand, the second most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere (after the Sydney Opera House). I can understand why. We took so many pictures of it that I’m dividing them into two posts. It is an incredible piece of architecture. This station was completed in 1906. One hundred ten years ago, people built beautiful buildings!

The gardens in front of it are absolutely amazing, too, even this early in the spring, or late in the winter—whichever you choose!

This is the steps going down from the porch in front of the door.

I let Mr. Intellectual give us a sense of scale for one of the pillars.

This excursion train is still in use.

An end view of the building.

The other side of the building, the platform side.

Standing on the platform.

Coming up next…the incredible artwork built into the inside of the building.

Trip to Dunedin Part 2—Climbing Mount Cargill

September 29, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

While we were in Dunedin (pronounced Doo-NEE-din, in case you wondered), we stayed with a family who live on Pine Hill, on the road to the Mount Cargill Lookout. Saturday afternoon they took us up to the top, and we hiked around for an hour or two. It was quite a strenuous walk for those of us who are terribly out of shape, but the scenery was worth it. The boys took the opportunity to practice rock climbing. This is Mr. Inventor.

We went to a rock outcropping that overlooks the city of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. I hustled Mr. Inventor away from the edge with his little sister. It went straight down a long way there.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Diligence

Everyone posed for a picture on top of the rock.

Looking north along the coast. It was an incredibly clear day, and we were all thankful for very little wind—they said that was quite unusual.

That rocky point in the middle is where we took the picture of everyone.

Climbing up the rocks.

Entrance to the Otago Harbour

Trip to Dunedin, Part 1—The Trip South

September 24, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took a trip to Dunedin, a large city near the south end of this island, a week ago. We left here fairly early Friday morning, and drove till it was nearly dark that evening, with just a few stops. This first picture shows the typical landscape in the Canterbury Plains, south of Christchurch. Mr. Diligence, who sits in the front of the van between his daddy and I, was getting bored, so he borrowed my camera. What this doesn’t show, which is very hard to pick up with the camera but very spectacular in real life, is the snow-capped mountains off to the west. The covering of snow this time of year makes them look a lot taller than they look in the summer, somehow. They look like they just rise suddenly out of the flat plains.

Esther was able, with her good camera, to get a picture that gives an idea of what we saw. This is taken from the bridge over the Rakaia River, which is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long. The structure you see is the railroad bridge.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for half an hour to take a break and enjoy the sea, at Shag Point. This first picture was taken as we drove along the sea; the rest were taken when we stopped. The cliff went nearly straight down, probably 50 feet! Esther and I, and Mr. Diligence who had a headache, stayed at the top; the rest went down a steep path to the sea.