New Zealand: Oamaru and Dunedin
Mar. 29th, 2015 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipHaving reach Oamaru, we stayed at the Eden Gardens Motel, the former maternity ward of the historic Oamaru Hospital. Much of the old hospital site is currently in an abandoned state (very tempting for urban explorers), but the hotel itself is in beautiful condition and location, in a late deco style surrounded by parkland and at a high point overlooking the main part of town and ocean. Much of the town is a collection of beautiful buildings, many made with the iconic Oamaru sandstone, known for being supple when quarried and hardening with exposure.
After visiting the impressive art-noveau Opera House, we went to the Victorian precinct, starting with the Steampunk HQ which has improved a great deal since last visit, with more interactive elements; the lights and mirrors in "The Portal Room" being notable. Unexpectedly found an impressive alternative record and genre-fiction book store; of all places in the world I did not expect to find a copy of Crass's Christ The Album here. After this had a late lunch with Nicolas Erdody of OpenParallel and we had a wide-ranging discussion concentrating on amusing and tragic stories of business processes. I am hoping to contribute at some stage to OpenParallel's work on signal and data processing for the Square Kilometre Array.
In the late afternoon we journeyed to Dunedin, which also has much more than its fair share of great buildings. The hotel where we're staying, the Park Regis, is certainly one of these, although it is surprisingly lacking in core services (parking, free Internet). With Saturday free, we engaged in some clothes shopping, had breakfast in the seaside suburb of St Clair, and then travelled to Taiaroa Head to the impressive Natures Wonders tour; travelling over rough land by argo, we had the opportunity for extraordinary views of the peninsula and harbour, getting up close with fur seals, and viewings of the rare yellow-eyed penguins, and the somewhat less rare blue penguins. Returning to the city on a 'big kid' whim, we went to see Shaun the Sheep at the Reading Cinema at the Octagon (cute and amusing) followed by dinner at the superb Etrusco.
After visiting the impressive art-noveau Opera House, we went to the Victorian precinct, starting with the Steampunk HQ which has improved a great deal since last visit, with more interactive elements; the lights and mirrors in "The Portal Room" being notable. Unexpectedly found an impressive alternative record and genre-fiction book store; of all places in the world I did not expect to find a copy of Crass's Christ The Album here. After this had a late lunch with Nicolas Erdody of OpenParallel and we had a wide-ranging discussion concentrating on amusing and tragic stories of business processes. I am hoping to contribute at some stage to OpenParallel's work on signal and data processing for the Square Kilometre Array.
In the late afternoon we journeyed to Dunedin, which also has much more than its fair share of great buildings. The hotel where we're staying, the Park Regis, is certainly one of these, although it is surprisingly lacking in core services (parking, free Internet). With Saturday free, we engaged in some clothes shopping, had breakfast in the seaside suburb of St Clair, and then travelled to Taiaroa Head to the impressive Natures Wonders tour; travelling over rough land by argo, we had the opportunity for extraordinary views of the peninsula and harbour, getting up close with fur seals, and viewings of the rare yellow-eyed penguins, and the somewhat less rare blue penguins. Returning to the city on a 'big kid' whim, we went to see Shaun the Sheep at the Reading Cinema at the Octagon (cute and amusing) followed by dinner at the superb Etrusco.
