We made our way from the fanciest hotel we’ve stayed at during this vacation. It’s essentially a resort with one cafe and two restaurants on site with activity booking and a souvenir shop on site. The restaurant was good (but not the best food we’ve had, this honour still resides firmly in Auckland) but certainly had the best do not disturb and make room signs we’ve seen as well as the best views.
We arrived in Done-EEE-Din (Dunedin for us mortals). The drive was less majestic than our previous drives as we had the stunning views in our rearview mirrors (and who uses those really...).
Our first stop was our hotel. Upon arriving, we met with the "rudest" hotel clerk we've had. We usually get the barrage of questions on where we’re arriving from, how we’re finding New Zealand, how long we’ve been here, how long remains, what we liked, etc. Instead of all of that we got the single question “where are you arriving from” and, upon telling him we’re coming in from Mount Cook we only got a single follow-up question: “did you see all of it?”. Rude right? No 50 questions, no trying to get our full travel story. Well, at least we learned from our host that a full sighting of Mount Cook is a rare thing and that we were lucky.
After dropping our bags, we’ve made the trek to Dunedin Airport to drop our rental car. We’re done with driving on the left. To our amazement, we discovered how horribly far the airport is from the city. It’s 30km away from Dunedin or, if you prefer, a 90$ cab ride back to town. It’s literally in the middle of farm fields (we’ve gone by sheep farms, dairy farms, etc.). The only transport options are: hiring a shuttle (a large multiple people cab), hiring a taxi, renting a car or walking the 30km. As much as we are in for hiking, we decided against it and went for the cab ride even if for that price, we might as well keep the car for two extra days and leave it parked at the hotel. Having a break from driving has its merits.
We’re looking forward to exploring this Scottish kiwi of a city tomorrow - so far we can definitely say Dunedin has a distinct personality.