/ Otago, South Island / By George
We left the Catlins late in the afternoon and arrived in Balclutha near darkness. It was raining a little, but depressingly cloudy with more rain predicted. The camp owner Dennis was very friendly and showed us around all the facilities. The parking bays were mainly concrete pads, with more being constructed, so the wet weather wasn’t a problem. The facilities were excellent and he made sure the heaters were on in the morning in the kitchen/lounge, which was most welcome as outdoor temperatures were definitely on the downward slide now. Overall our visit to Balclutha was very brief, leaving late morning after washing down the wagon (yes they had a carwash hose and brush and boy did it need a wash), having had a kitchen breakfast and visiting the dump station at the camp. It was raining steadily the whole time and not very warm so we were pleased to get in the wagon and head off. I can’t recommend anything about Balclutha other than the camp and the fish and chip shop we visited the previous evening. Can’t remember its name though, but Dennis at the camp knows it (it’s near the BP service station and maybe the only one in town for all we know).
We were getting more confident that our daughter, Felicia, would be able to come over from Melbourne to visit. We hadn’t seen her since pre-Covid, in fact just over two years ago. We both had trips planned last year to cross the Tasman but neither eventuated for obvious reasons. We were now on the return drive to Christchurch to pick her up, scheduled for Saturday 19 June, but dependent on a negative Covid test. We continued though with great hope and positive intentions.
We stopped at Milton at the supermarket. It was wet and very cloudy and the town was engulfed in smoke with a strong odour from the residential open fires. It was a kind of de-ja-vue moment from when we were kids. The oppression of a cold, wet and deeply cloudy day where we huddled around an open fire and watched lumps of coke and coal glow as you tossed in heaps of dried driftwood, begging for them to burst into flames. However, travelling in our motorhome in this is not scenically inspiring and Milton just looked gloomy and uninviting. The ‘charm’, if there ever is any, of this sort of winter presence, North or South, eludes me. We ventured into the supermarket and to show how cold it was they had a space shuttle second-hand first stage rocket booster blasting the checkout operators to get them warm. Not so sure the noise of the thing was that good for them though.
We arrived in Dunedin late in the day. This is a recurring event largely due to the fact that we don’t get up early enough! However, we acknowledge that we are creatures of the night and have been for more years than I remember. I can’t see us wanting to change that…we just need longer days of sunlight and daylight saving….that’s for the next trip. Still we pulled on our wet weather gear to face this damp and gloomy evening after parking up at the amazing free camp area at the historic Railway Station. It was easy walking distance to the Octagon, the heart of the city, which was a rare thing for major cities. There certainly wasn’t the mandatory 3 m between campervans however, as you can see from the photo below..
We walked over the railway over-bridge and were strolling around the old station admiring the architecture, when we noticed a gathering inside the main foyer. We weren’t totally aware at this point that the station was no longer in use, except for special excursions, but it was obvious that there was a distinct lack of the usual humdrum of passengers. The sound of singing drew us into the foyer and we stayed for nearly an hour listening to the glorious harmonic chorus of the Dunstan College choir, enhanced by the superb natural reverberation in this historic space. We actually climbed upstairs to the balcony which opens out onto the foyer, joining other students enjoying this experience. The choir were actually rehearsing for a competition being held in the town hall the next day. The level of college choral presentation is way above what I remember from when I was at school. It was a slightly surreal start to our Dunedin visit and lifted our spirits on an unwelcoming Sunday night.
We walked into the Octagon, which unsurprisingly was not very populated. Eating establishments that were open were few and far between, but the feature lighting and wet roads here illuminated the area to great effect. We had a brief conversation with a couple of young women herding parishioners to some local church gathering, but the cold and dampness did not entice us to linger too long here.
Still the Octagon is a significant statement and centre point, the dominant St Paul’s Cathedral and the Municipal Chambers standing side by side; the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the statue of Robert Burns promoting both history and culture in this space. It seemed appropriate that being a Sunday we should also walk back to the wagon past the first church of Otago, the city’s primary Presbyterian Church and the most impressive of NZ’s nineteenth century churches. It was officially opened on 23 November 1873 and is indeed an imposing piece of architecture.
We rose a little earlier the next morning and headed back into the Octagon to visit the Public Art Gallery. Whilst not an art aficionado I cannot help but be intrigued by the sublime, the unbelievable, the ridiculous, the thought-provoking, the humorous, the inspirational, the ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’, the ‘is that an exhibit or not’ (otherwise known as ‘uncertain realism’), the bizarre and the ‘is that a photo or a painting’. The installation focusing on ventilation was particularly interesting as I had encountered many problems with air conditioning systems in my years in the construction industry. I’m not sure that the exhibits offered revolutionary solutions technically, but then I was too grounded in the engineering purity rather than the representative obscurity. I always walk out of galleries thinking my mind must be locked inside a static cube with no windows or doors. Debbie loves these places as they bleed inspiration more prolific than the waterfalls at Milford Sound.
We wandered a bit aimlessly around the streets reconnecting with our metropolitan roots, recently starved of glass shopfronts and ‘off the wall’ stores (or is that some form of quirky art gallery or whacky bar?). We breezed past the Chinese Gardens, which, looking at photos later by others would have been worth a stop; took a very distant photo of the new stadium; a few shots of the prison and courthouse and headed for Baldwin Street as a form of cramming in some must-do’s.
Baldwin Street is by all accounts, and the sign at the bottom of the street confirms, the ‘Worlds Steepest Street’. I’m sure this will continue to be contested given the number of streets in the world, but it seems to have beaten off all-comers so far. We just went for a look, but then decided it didn’t look that steep or that long, so took the climb and you must walk it to authentic the visit. Did we cheat by taking the side with the steps on it? I don’t think it was any more difficult than some of the hilly tracks we did before and after this ascent. Still we ticked another box and met some others equally proud of ‘knocking the bugger off’! We didn’t think it was necessary to buy a certificate though and headed north out of town. We will return to Dunedin though as we know there is much more to see here. Impressed so far with the city though.
It didn’t look that steep from here
