Dunedin

Dunedin - the undiscovered paradise

Visit New Zealand's only castle, run up the world's steepest street, stroll along white sandy beaches, watch albatrosses and penguins in their natural habitats and then walk up a mountain to a view that will take your breath away. While this may sound like a holiday itinerary in some exotic paradise all this can be done in Dunedin's backyard. Yet, it's a place most people are yet to realise is the ideal holiday destination.

Dunedin's diverse range of interesting sights and activities are part of this friendly, cosmopolitan city, with it strong Scottish history, lively student population and vibrant arts community.

The city is built on a spectacular ampitheatre of hills at the head of a harbour, which winds its way through the beautiful Otago Peninsula. For hundreds of years Maori had enjoyed its shelter and bountiful food supply and it was only natural for whalers and sealers to join them in the early 19th century. Then in 1842 an idea was mooted in Scotland for a Scottish settlement on the East Coast of the South Island.

Six years later Dunedin was established, through a joint venture by the NZ Company and the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland. The idea was that the main town should reproduce the features of the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, right down to sharing many of the same street names. To give it a good honest beginning it would be named Dunedin, the Gaelic version of Edinburgh.

The first 344 colonists arrived in the ships John Wickliffe and Philip Laing in March and April 1848. About 12,000 more immigrants arrived in Otago during the 1850s, most of them Scottish Presbyterians.

According to the great American writer Mark Twain, the settlers believed they had stumbled upon a hidden paradise. "The people here are Scotch. They stopped here on their way to Heaven thinking they had arrived."

The rugged beauty of bush-covered hills and a beautiful harbour reminded these early
settlers of home - as did the cold winters. They brought many aspects of their Scottish life with them and that legacy remains today: Otago schoolgirls wear kilts as part of their uniform, haggis is regularly offered on the menu at a number of Dunedin restaurants and bagpipe music is often the preferred accompaniment at official occasions. The city also celebrates its Scottish heritage with an annual Scottish Week.

Even the Octagon, Dunedin's city centre, features the statue of the famed Scottish poet Robbie Burns. While Burns never actually visited Dunedin, his nephew - a Presbyterian minister - was leader of the emigrants aboard the Philip Laing. The decision to erect the statue caused much controversy due to a number of pornographic verses Burns had penned, in addition to all his public poems. Perhaps in recognition of this poet's prominence in the centre of the city, Dunedin has become a haven for artists, writers, musicians and poets.

Dunedin's city centre has a real vitality with an extensive range of bars, cafes, shops and theatres (including a church now converted into a live professional theatre). It is an easy walk distance to Otago Harbour, the stately house 'Olveston' and the Botanical Gardens.

Dunedin can be attributed with many 'firsts'. It was the first city to light its streets with gas and provide public transport. It was also the first to establish a university, a medical school, an art school, a teachers' college and a public art gallery. The University was the first in the empire to admit women to all its classes and was the first educational facility in NZ to have a woman professor. Dunedin was also birthplace to the country's first kindergarten, as well as the first daily newspaper - the Otago Daily Times, established in 1861.

Dunedin's architecture, which is among the finest in NZ, is reason enough to visit. Highlights include NZ's only castle, the stone buildings of the University which were modelled on the University of Glasgow buildings and the elegant Flemish Renaissance-style Dunedin Railway Station, which was opened in 1906.

For a reasonably small city, Dunedin has more than its share of unusual features. It is home to Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street, and venue for the annual Gutbuster - a run up and down the street to challenge even the fittest. There are the unusual volcanic rock formations of Lovers Leap, the Chasm and the Organ Pipes. Then there's the Otago Peninsula, which is the only place in the world where the giant Royal Albatross breeds on the mainland.

But the feature that stands out the most is Dunedin's spirit - it is a city with a style of its own. When Dunedin people get into the spirit of things they do it with great gusto. Before rugby games, shop fronts are decorated in the official Otago colours of blue and gold, as are residents, and fans have taken to camping out to obtain tickets to matches. The whole city goes mad!

Then there's the vibrant lifestyle brought to the city by its 20,000 students. The neighbourhood around the university campus (just a few minute's walk from the town centre) is one of the few areas in the country almost entirely devoted to students, making it well and truly NZ's number one university city.

Without a doubt, Dunedin is a thriving and exciting paradise.