At sunrise, I did check whether we got to see the sun earlier than any other. I doubt it, and dawn in Omarama sure looked like just another Monday morning.
We had an early breakie, got loaded into the coach and headed towards the east coast.
In the town of Oamaru on the shore of the Pacific Ocean we saw great things, ...
... strolled along in the large Victorian precinct with grand buildings constructed of the local white marble. Quite beautiful and well kept.
 |
| The steepest part of this street has a gradient of 35%. |
On our arrival in the very Scottish city of Dunedin (Dùn Èideann is Gaelic for Edinburgh) we stopped and awed at the steepest street in the world: Baldwin Street.
Next door you can, apparently, let both your coffee and tea steep for a while.
In downtown, the magnificent Dunedin Railway Station must be the beautiful mother-of-all-railway-stations.
Dunedin was settled in 1848 by a shipload of Scottish immigrants of Presbyterian faith. Since then, the descendants of the Haberfields, the Apes, the Harwoods, the Palmers and a few other family clans have ruled this Scottish bastion in the southern hemisphere.
They all stare at you from the walls in the local Settlers' Museum.
That museum also sported two local settlers and four newcomers from faraway.
The biggest local Scottish hero in Dunedin is still the poet Robert Burns (amongst many things the author of the lyrics of "Auld lang syne" [Should auld acquaintance be forgot ...]) although he has never set foot in New Zealand. His nephew, however, was the spiritual leader of the first immigrants.
In the late afternoon we visited Olveston Historic House in a plush quarter of the city ...
... followed by a late siesta for the feet.
Tonight's dinner treat was indeed Scottish: Haggis (a traditional pudding made of heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned and boiled in the stomach of the animal).
And this was what it looked like when the stomach was sliced open. – Yummie !
To make it a complete dish, it was served with a special gravy: Scotch whisky.
. . .
Tomorrow we will be going west, bound for Te Anau.
