Thursday, May 24

May 24, 2007

This morning, Josh called down to Reception to ask that our room not be cleaned until noon. That gave us some time to get ready without worrying that the maid was going to knock (this hotel did not have Do Not Disturb signs). Today we were going to follow Josh’s idea of walking rather than driving to Baldwin Street, the World’s Steepest Street as noted by the Guinness Book of World Records. We left the hotel at 11 and as we walked we saw a sign for a free sausage. The food was being cooked and served by a religious group. As we talked to the three young men there, we learned that they attend Harding in Searcy, Arkansas and they were in New Zealand on a mission trip. It was funny though because although they all attended Harding they were from Arizona and California originally.

After a brief chat, our walk continued and it was a long walk to Baldwin street (10 streets off the map that we had). When we reached the street we took some pictures and then watched as other people who had driven out there, drove their cars up the street or got out, parked the car, and walked up the street. We had already done our walking to get there and we had to walk back to make it to the brewery tour on time so we turned around and headed back into town.

On our walk back, we bought an ice cream cone from a dairy. Josh had caramel fudge and I had caramel cookies and cream and a diet coke. Both were good. We detoured from our original walk to walk through the Dunedin Botanical Gardens. We figured we might as well see something more then the streets while we were there. Once we reached George Street, I popped into the hotel to drop off my jacket and we were off on our way into the city center for the Speight’s Brewery tour (Josh, following his map, took us on the back alley way walk to reach it).

We arrived about ten minutes before our 2:00 Speights tour and Josh filled up his water bottle with fresh spring water that is accessed on the outside of the building. Man, that place smelled funky…like no other brewery we’ve been to in the past. Yuck…if that smell keeps up I wasn’t going to be able to sample any of the beers because the smell alone made me want to vomit. It was a sour, warm, humidy smell of hops. Typically, dry hops alone (which are used in beer production) smell very nice. This smell, however, was quite unpleasant.

We took the elevator up to the eighth floor and worked our way down from there. It was pretty standard and reiterated what we had learned on the Monteith’s Brewery tour. I thought it was interesting that they do not bottle Speight’s beer in Dunedin although it is manufactured here.

After the tour ended, we were able to sample seven different beers on tap while watching different Speight’s commercials throughout the ages…their slogan in the commercials is “Good On Ya, Mate.” One beer, the summer seasonal, was on its way out to be replaced by the winter seasonal. It had an apricot flavor and was my favorite beer while Josh’s favorite was the dark beer. We were able to serve ourselves for about 15 minutes or so. Rather than trying the dark beers, which typically I don’t like, I primarily drank the summer seasonal since this was the only place to have it.

Before leaving the brewery, Josh had his picture taken in the cutout of a Speight’s Man. Then, we decided to go to the Speight’s Ale House next door for another drink because since we’d taken the tour, we would receive $1 off each beer we purchased.

The Ale House was nicely decorated and Josh ordered the regular Speight’s Gold and I ordered the winter seasonal beer called Fireside Ale. With the discount, the two beers came to $8.00…a good deal! I thought the Speight’s Gold, which was not pasteurized since they brought it directly here, was more disgusting than the Speight’s Gold that you buy at the grocery store. The Fireside Ale, however, was very nice but it’s only available at the Ale House not in the grocery stores. Ultimately, I prefer Monteith’s and Tui to Speight’s.

We walked back to the hotel and Josh checked out Whale Rider on VHS. We were finally going to be able to watch this New Zealand movie. But first, we had to have dinner. We decided to go out to the Great Taste restaurant we’d checked out earlier in the day on our walk back from the brewery. Since it was only a short walk from the hotel and it was a buffet, it was a no brainer that we should eat there.

Although the place was named Great Taste “Chinese” buffet it was really not just Chinese. The place had potato wedges, nachos, soup and salad so it wasn’t really a Chinese food only buffet even though the décor was based on an Asian theme. The food was really good and at $15 for “all you like” (which is what they say in New Zealand rather than “all you can eat”…and Josh said he like that phrase-ology much better) we thought it was a good deal. We bought two meals and I bought unlimited Diet Coke for an additional $3.50. Considering that’s what one small bottle of soda cost you with a take away, it was a good deal too.

We were finally able to watch Whale Rider. It was an okay movie and I’m glad I didn’t watch it until movie here because I had a better context and understanding of the Maori culture after having lived in New Zealand for 4 months.

We were off to bed knowing that we had about a 5 hour drive to Twizel (Mount Cook area) the following day.