Day 48 – Queenstown to Dunedin.

Although my bus didn’t leave until 10.30am, the bus heading north left at 9.30am and the bus to Milford Sound left at 7.30am so I ended up waking up quite early. Kirsty and I went to have Nomads luxury breakfast and our final meal together. I wandered outside with them and waited for the bus to come, as the bus pulls up they’ve only got the one and only Gary as their driver again. I hope my next driver is as good as he was. Kirsty, Francesca and I said our final goodbyes, which was very sad as they’ve been a big part of my Kiwi Experience so far.

The coach pulled off which left me with just under an hour to sort myself out. I needed to check out by 10am so I double-checked we hadn’t left anything in the room before heading downstairs. I checked out but still had half an hour, so I just sat outside the front of the hostel on the floor (classy I know) and had a quick Skype to my parents.

The bus pulled up and it is so much smaller than all the others I’ve been in so far, it even had a trailer on the back for our luggage. We left Queenstown and started our journey south to Dunedin. We stopped in a little village on the way there to grab some lunch. The best thing about this place was their toilets, now let me explain. They were what I’d called public spaceships. The light on the outside either flashed green or red (I’ll let you figure out what that means) and when you wanted to go in you pressed the enter button. Once the doors closed the door automatically locked, a voice spoke and said you have a maximum of 10minutes and then started playing some music… everything was automatic but actually worked compared to those really naff silver sinks you get in UK public toilets.

Anyway, enough about toilets… we made our way into Dunedin which they describe as the Edinburgh of New Zealand. This is because the Scots discovered this end of the country and the plans for this town were made up in Scotland itself. Our driver gave us a brief tour of the place including a look at the Steepest Road in the world (Baldwin St) and as it is fresher’s week a look at the student area. Now, I’ve been to a fair few cities that have universities and I have never seen anything like this! Road after road of student housing with litter everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE, sofas in the front garden covered in alcohol bottles, TV’s hanging out of windows, it just looked like a bomb had exploded with student mess everywhere, it was pretty disgusting to be fair. It did not make me want to live there!

Dunedin has a Cadbury factory, which unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go to as we didn’t arrive until around 4pm. I spent the rest of my day just wondering about the city. Ignoring road signs and the obvious kiwiness I could have been in Edinburgh. The architecture of the buildings and just the feel of the place reminded me of there. I went to bed quite early as I was shattered and I now have a cold/blocked nose so I’m feeling fantastic!