A Road Trip!

So, a little primer on Dunedin: It's a (usually) rainy city on the east cost of the south island of New Zealand, settled in the mid-1800's by a bunch of crazy Scots who, although very far from home, had somehow managed to wash ashore in a place that looked just like Scotland. Gold was found in the remote hills of central Otago in the 1860s, and Dunedin sprung up almost overnight, funded by the sudden wealth, which explains some of the imposing, solid-looking and completely over-the-top Gothic revival architecture here. They likes they gargoyles.

Anyhoo, we sit behind a modest harbor, formed by a little infolding in the coast. Stretching away from us to the northeast and jutting out into the cold Pacific is the Otago peninsula, a rumpled and windy place. There are no gas stations out there. Plenty of people live on the peninsula, but they've found a way to live that doesn't impact the wildlife and there's penguins, albatross, sea lions and whale sightings. Here it is.



You see? So, yesterday, with our new (to us) wheels, Emeline and I headed out to the peninsula, on a road with sharp hairpin turns and absolutely nothing stopping you from driving straight into the sea. We visited Larnach Castle, the only castle in New Zealand. It's amazing that this wilderness, and also this crazy castle perched on top of it, sits just 20-minutes away from where we live. The views were amazing. Here's Emeline, banished to the tower for making jokes about Hobbits on the tour.




And then, driving back to Dunedin along the hill road, with a storm blowing in from the sea, we stopped for a moment in one of the windiest place I've ever been. (ck)