Dunedin 1 week in

We've been in town for a week now, busy, busy, busy looking for apartments, setting up bank accounts, Kate starting to do some work around the lab, me trying to sort out visa stuff….. and on and on.

Anyway, GOOD NEWS! We've got an apartment and we move in tomorrow! yeeeeeeah, its been 5 MONTHS since I've had a permanent residence and I'm pretty exited about it. No photos of the place, that's in a post to come soon.

Today we took a break and visited the beach. The beach is on the other side of town from us so we splurged on a bus ticket. So when I say "other side of town" I mean about 9km (5.5 miles), yeah Dunedin is tiny. So tiny we ended up walking all the way back to our place.

Lots of surfers out today

The obligatory sign post to far away places…..

Coffee. I realized I haven't had a coffee since arriving in town. This is a crime on many levels, but even more so because of Dunedin's reputation for good coffee. Most coffee is espresso based, or at home people either use a plunger (french press) or just rock instant grounds. I have yet to see an American style drip machine anywhere here, including at the shops.

This long black (americano) hit the spot.

Stumbled across the greatest park of my life:

A kids bike course for learning the road rules (I'll be on this once I get a bike)

A Whale (and a monster thing in the background)!

Dino Slide!

Time for bed!

Arrival!

We made it!

Finally in Dunedin, here are some of the first snaps of the downtown area. Here is the downtown and Otago Habour.

Seems to be a lot of these old brick buildings, apparently they are Late Victorian and Edwardian in style. Whatever they are, they are cool.

The train station outside and inside.


And a picture of a building on the University of Otago campus, where Kate is soon to be starting at.

We'll post some more pictures and details about the city once we know them.

Auckland

One day in Auckland, biggest city in New Zealand. A whoppin' 1.2 million people or approx. 30% of the NZ population (~4million total). Put it another way there are more Wisconsinites in the world than Kiwis. Speaking of Wisconsin…..


What is this? It's Burger Wisconsin, a NATIONAL burger chain. They claim the burger was invented in Seymor, Wisconsin and that the world's best burgers are also from Wisconsin. Nice claim, not sure if its true, but I'll give us the benefit of the doubt.

Cool Fact: New Zealand 1st country to grant women's suffrage.

We ended the day catching a bus back to the hotel, about halfway back I noticed that he had a giant stuffed tiger on the dash, amazing.

Minotaurs

A few last days in Adelaide involved a few dinners and 43C (110F) heat. The first was a CJ's house out on the porch.

Mr. Wade arrives.

Also caught up with some of Kate's friends from High School. It was their 10 year reunion this year, which means mine isn't too far behind (yipe!).

And probably the best fact I've learned in a while:

And with that the Aussie adventure comes to a close. It's finally time to head to New Zealand!

Melbourne Pt. 2

Most cities try to stop street art, Melbourne embraces it and it has run wild. You would be pretty hard up to find an alleyway in the downtown that DIDN'T have some art in it. Here are a few examples:


Kate in the one alley that wasn't overrun with art.

Later in the day we visited brunswick street in the Fitzroy neighborhood. Oh look, some street art!
Brunswick St

When you think Fitzroy think Williamson street in Madison crossed with Williamsonburg in Brooklyn and you are coming close. Much of the music and art coming out of Australia crosses through this neighborhood along with that loads of cafes, pubs and restaurants to boot.

A baby hung up by wires? I rest my case

Cool lights and pictures at Sista Bella

Melbourne Pt. 1

Mmm, what does this tasty delight mean? Road trip to Melbourne! Yep, this is some certified greasy, salty, and great tasting roadhouse food. Along the 8 hour drive we passed the incredible shabby looking Giant Koala.

Melbourne loves its coffee, it is everywhere. This particular cup is from a shop in St. Kilda.

An act of desperation?

On Wednesday nights in the summer Melbourne opens up the markets at night. Lots of craft stalls and an incredible amount and diversity of food stalls, very cool.

Sangria!

They have a stage for live music at the markets. You can see it better from the bar across the road AND the drinks are cheaper too.

Adelaide

I visited my old lab at the veterans hospital and had some time to kill so I wandered over to the second hand shop. It's run by a lovely but cantankerous gang of elderly ladies. The shop was closed for the holidays but I spotted this gem a sign on the window.

It raises so many fascinating questions: How do they know who stole it? Why can't they just get it back? Why won't they prosecute? Is $60 the average price for a mid-range wheelbarrow or are they attempting to upgrade? It has the makings of a thrilling episode of a British village crime show.

We went to McLaren Vale, 45 min from Adelaide and enjoyed getting reacquainted with delicious Australian wine and gorgeous vineyard views.


We've also been getting reacquainted with the burning heat of South Australia and the beaches. At 5pm the sun was still strong enough to give me a solid sunburn.

Brighton beach welcomed me home with a jellyfish sting for old time's sake. It's not that impressive looking (by the time I took this photo you could only see a faint red line) but it stung for a few hours and made me feel vital and reconnected with my wild and dangerous native land.

Christmas and New Years

Made it to Adelaide, sunny, warm weather to be had. One of the first things we did was go to the Central Markets to buy some food for Christmas.

Had some breakfast and coffee with Bec while we were there.

For Christmas Kate and I made a cheese creche. Yes that is right, a cheese creche. It was an article in the Isthmus that inspired us to bring a bit of Wisconsin pride down under. We got a wide range of responses when we pulled this out.

Yum!

For new years we helped Bec make a Donkey-Pig-something-or-other pinata, here it is at its humble beginnings.

and there were also party poppers