Wednesday, May 23

May 23, 2007

We were up and heading out for the day around 11:00 or so…just as the maid was knocking on our door to clean the room. Seriously, we’re late risers and we’ve frequently found ourselves in this position. Quite humorous.

As we were walking down George Street toward the Octagon, we stopped in the mall’s food court and had Chinese for lunch. After lunch, we checked the bank accounts at the National Bank and transferred money from one account into another. We’re going to need to put another $100 into Deb’s Rylee Retreat account but I don’t have the number anymore and it’s in my email which I’m unable to check until we find a café or something.

Josh and I walk around the Octagon, stepping into the I-site to ask if anywhere in town offers free wireless internet. There are two spots in town and one is the Art Gallery which is on the Octagon. We walk over there to have a quick look and confirm about the wireless but the girl at reception doesn’t seem to think they have it there. Great.

Next, we walk down a road that branches off the Octagon to visit the Dunedin Train Station. It’s a great piece of architecture. After viewing that, we hung out at the Octagon and Dunedin Art Museum killing time until our Cadbury factory tour.

We were booked on a 2:00 Cadbury factory tour. We checked in about 10 minutes early and looked around the self guided area of the lobby. Then, we followed a group to watch a movie that marked the beginning of the tour. Since the Cadbury factory is a working factory, we were issued hair nets (Josh got one for his beard) and we had to remove our jewelry. Everyone put their belongings, including our cameras, in a big locker before we departed for the factory tour.

The tour was alright, however, as Josh pointed out, you begin to become conditioned to expecting a piece of candy once you enter a new room. If no candy is produced, you are disappointed. We ended up collecting several pieces, however, I wish I would have doubled up on the things I liked and passed on the things I didn’t like. Not doing so was kind of dumb on my part. For example, when a piece of Dairy Chocolate and Perkynana (a chocolate/banana candy bar) were passed out simultaneously, I should have just taken two Dairy Chocolates instead of the banana candy which I KNOW I don’t like. Stupid, but sometimes I’m afraid to go against the flow.

The most interesting thing on the tour was finding out that they begin making Easter candy in June (although we saw them making Easter eggs while we were there in May so they were starting early). They also keep the candy bars going too. Josh hoped to get some free Scorched Almonds which are his favorite but even though we saw them producing them, we didn’t get a sample.

The tour went outside on a balcony and our tour guide pointed out a few Dunedin landmarks. The Cadbury factory is literally across the street from the train station so we had another look at that from a different perspective. It was a great sunny day so the view was nice.

We were then led into one of the silos that had previously been used to hold the “crum” a milk mixture that is used in making the chocolates. It smelled very chocolatey in here. We were at the top of the silo looking down. We were told to stand back because we were going to get to see a chocolate waterfall as the silo had been converted for this purpose once it was no longer necessary to use it to hold the crum. Well, we were expecting something similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but it wasn’t really a fountain so much as a thundering fall of chocolate that splattered the railing and floor and overall really wasn’t that special or impressive for all it was billed to be. In fact, it was kind of gross how dry chocolate covered the rail and the steps as we walked down the staircase out of the silo.

Tour over, we took off our hair nets and reclaimed our backpack. I took Josh’s picture with a Cadbury man cut out and Josh took my photo driving the Cadbury truck. We browsed around the shop and asked the tour guide why they named their dark chocolate “Energy” as that didn’t really make any sense at all. She didn’t have the answer so I walked away but Josh reiterated the improper naming to the tour guide a couple of more times.

We walked out of the building into the sunlight and made our way back towards our hotel. We looked in a couple of shops along the way but didn’t buy anything. Back at the room we checked out the DVD Cars to watch (the receptionist noting we had picked out a movie quickly and I thought “Well, that’s because most of your selection is either old movies or children’s movies) and took it easy and hung out for the night. Josh made us soup and sandwiches as per usual and we ate dinner while watching the movie. We both thought Cars was a good show.

We went to sleep after reading our books (I started up The Tommyknockers again) and watching tv.