Boulders and Chocolate and a Night on the Town
12/12/10
Wow, today was a busy day:
- We visited the Moeraki Boulders…bizarre, super spherelike boulders sitting on the beach and on the sea. Seeing something like this I’m always surprised by the variety of nature!
- We went to Dunedin where highlights include the world’s steepest street (although this stat is also claimed by San Francisco so someday I’ll have to go there and judge) AND the second most photographed building in Australasia next to the Sydney Opera House: the Dunedin train station.
- But more importantly, Dunedin houses New Zealand’s CADBURY factory!!! Apparently chocolate was first made in NZ on this site in 1884 and that chocolate company was sold to Cadbury in the early 1900’s. The tour was really exciting (because what’s dull about chocolate), including a waterfall-like “chocolate fall” where we saw 1 ton of molten chocolate drop 28 meters inside a large purple silo. True story. Of course, the many samples were a highlight as well.
- For the night we traveled to the most southern stay of our tour in Kaka Point, a tiny town with a tiny campsite where we had a really fun night out. We were actually able to use the backyard grilling facilities of a local bar/restaurant and I happened to be on cooking duty so I had to help with the meal. Yikes! We made burgers and potato salad and it turned out great (yay!) and then headed into the bar area to enjoy the rest of the evening. It had been a while since we spent any part of the evening eating or drinking inside…so despite the small town feel…we felt very fancy.
