The journey continues to Dunedin. For once, I set off early after little sleep. I arrive in Dunedin early in the afternoon and am quite impressed. I can almost smell something like history. Old buildings, imitation Italian Renaissance, neo-Gothic and again Art Deco alongside classicism. The first city in New Zealand where there are more stone buildings than wooden houses.
Why is clear: Dun-Edin means New Edinburgh and goes back to a Scottish foundation. Scots don’t like wood, but they really like black and white stone. It lasts longer and is therefore cheaper. I wind my way through Dunedin and soon find my hostel high up on a hill.
Once again, the hostel is great. Old villa, view over the city, hot pool in the garden. Okay, WiFi isn’t free as promised but at $5 a day I don’t even start snorting. I go into town. A Turkish restaurant serves me the best kebab ever – albeit the most expensive.
Everyone tells me about Dunedin as a party and student city. Well, it’s term time, but the 10 pubs I found can’t really justify this reputation, can they? I jump in the car and drive through the surrounding hills. Old boy schools, monasteries, the university. Then I head east to the Otago Peninsula.
The Australian banker Lanarch had a castle built on the highest mountain in 1870. He was probably the only one to make money from the gold rush. Nevertheless, he was not happy. A few years later, after his third wife, he shot himself in the middle of the English Parliament.
I savour a cappuccino in the Knights’ Hall. Rain and fog are gathering. Visibility drops to 50 metres. Almost like Scotland. I walk back to the car through the castle’s rainforest garden. I would have liked to visit a penguin colony and the breeding grounds of the royal albatross. No point in this weather.
Back at the villa, I meet a few girls from yesterday’s hostel and other acquaintances from earlier times. Everything goes in good circles here. I go to a posh Swiss ristorante. A cosy Biedermeier-style parlour, dark lighting and old jazz. People are waiting for their table by the fireplace. I treat myself to rosemary lamb medallions with rösti for €30. You just have to get high on some food.
A good German chap joins me in the city. If the travel guide praises the pub scene, then you have to check it out. So we do. Not for long but a lot. Back at the hostel, I get flattened at poker again and start to doubt proverbs.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.