I like Easter weekend in New Zealand because you get a four
day weekend, since Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays. It’s a
good opportunity for an adventure before winter sets in. We spent Easter
weekend this year in Dunedin, one of the Southern-most cities in New Zealand. I
had briefly visited there in 2014, but enjoyed a bit longer stay this time.
We started the weekend by attending one of Ed Sheeran’s
concert, which was fabulous J
We enjoyed kiwi-band Six60 who opened for him as much as we did Ed I believe,
wonderful night of music.
The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying long coffee
breaks, massive burgers from a Chinese takeaway place, and roaming the city.
Highlights were seeing the old European style architecture, marvelling at how
people get up and down the hills once snow and ice set in for the winter, and
touring an underground fort built in the 1880s due to fears of a Russian
invasion, Fort Taiaroa. The fort was built with a disappearing gun that could be fired and
then put back underground. I found it quite interesting that the guide said it
took 6 hours to pressurize the gun so that it could be used, which made me
question its usefulness in the event of a surprise attack. The fort was compact
with the disappearing gun clearly the focal point. The location was beautiful,
but due to its location at the point of a peninsula would be terribly
unpleasant during cold winter months with no barriers to break the wind.
There is never enough time to see everything but we
particularly enjoyed the movie theatre with murals on the walls, the ‘Hard to
Find’ bookshop, and the albatrosses that live near the underground fort.
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| 'True Love' statue in Ashburton |
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| Haka at the beginning of the concert |
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| City bus! |
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| Movie theater murals |
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| Street art |
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| Lovely coastal drive to the fort |
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| View from the fort |
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| Lighthouse near the fort |
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| Sound the alarm! |
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| The jail is the only original part of the fort still standing |
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| Speaking of the wind... |
