Tuesday was a day to relax and take in the beautiful city of Dunedin. This Scottish town has beautiful buildings, tons of history, THREE coasts, a brewery, and a chocolate factory. Guess where we spent our day?
After a nominal exploration of the city (we bought tshirts and went into two old churches) we went to the Cadbury chocolate factory. They did not allow us to take pictures on the tour, but we did snap some photos before the tour began. The chocolate making process was interesting, but what I liked was that the tour guide asked lots of trivia questions and, as a reward, gave out chocolates. We had arrived early for the tour and I spent my time reading all the factoids on the wall about the history of the factory and of chocolate in general (100 cocoa beans would buy you a slave in the Mayan culture. They knew this stuff was good!!). Having spent my time prepping, I did very well in the free chocolate department and left with my hoodie pouch full. The highlight of the tour was a giant chocolate waterfall that dumped a ton of chocolate all at once in front of us.
We had some time to kill between tours so we headed to Baldwin Street - the steepest residential street in the world. It has a 19 degree incline and only CJ felt the insurmountable need to climb the hill. Lewis and I were still too tired from the previous three days of climbing so we stayed at the bottom and took pictures.We did not drive up the hill because we watched a few cars try to do it and they looked as though they were having trouble completing the hill and our rig has trouble on normal hills. Why risk it?
Next, we went to the Speight's brewery tour. The brewery has been in operation since 1860-something and still does things the old-fashioned way. They brew in copper kettles, the brewery is designed to operate using gravity to move the beer from stage to stage, and they age the beer in kauri gyles (kauri is now a protected tree and cannot be harvested. The wood in the gyles is probably worth more than hte rest of the brewery). Like the chocolate tour, the process was interesting but the best part was the tasting afterwards where they left the tourists in a bar with unrestricted access to the taps. CJ and I took advantage of this to try and make our walk back to the RV as difficult as possible.
To wrap up the night, we got takeout and did laundry. Now we are heading to the opposite coast to the famed Milford Sound.
I will update this post with pictures later...
After a nominal exploration of the city (we bought tshirts and went into two old churches) we went to the Cadbury chocolate factory. They did not allow us to take pictures on the tour, but we did snap some photos before the tour began. The chocolate making process was interesting, but what I liked was that the tour guide asked lots of trivia questions and, as a reward, gave out chocolates. We had arrived early for the tour and I spent my time reading all the factoids on the wall about the history of the factory and of chocolate in general (100 cocoa beans would buy you a slave in the Mayan culture. They knew this stuff was good!!). Having spent my time prepping, I did very well in the free chocolate department and left with my hoodie pouch full. The highlight of the tour was a giant chocolate waterfall that dumped a ton of chocolate all at once in front of us.
We had some time to kill between tours so we headed to Baldwin Street - the steepest residential street in the world. It has a 19 degree incline and only CJ felt the insurmountable need to climb the hill. Lewis and I were still too tired from the previous three days of climbing so we stayed at the bottom and took pictures.We did not drive up the hill because we watched a few cars try to do it and they looked as though they were having trouble completing the hill and our rig has trouble on normal hills. Why risk it?
Next, we went to the Speight's brewery tour. The brewery has been in operation since 1860-something and still does things the old-fashioned way. They brew in copper kettles, the brewery is designed to operate using gravity to move the beer from stage to stage, and they age the beer in kauri gyles (kauri is now a protected tree and cannot be harvested. The wood in the gyles is probably worth more than hte rest of the brewery). Like the chocolate tour, the process was interesting but the best part was the tasting afterwards where they left the tourists in a bar with unrestricted access to the taps. CJ and I took advantage of this to try and make our walk back to the RV as difficult as possible.
To wrap up the night, we got takeout and did laundry. Now we are heading to the opposite coast to the famed Milford Sound.
I will update this post with pictures later...
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