{"id":4605,"date":"2024-10-18T11:55:15","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T10:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2024-10-19T10:19:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T09:19:46","slug":"dunedin-to-queenstown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=4605","title":{"rendered":"Dunedin to Queenstown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oh look, a cut because of images. That’s a surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was another travel day, though not an early-start day, thankfully, and I’ve got a better idea of where to kill time in Dunedin now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Pictures of a building, just because I liked the look of the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I found a place to get breakfast by wandering along towards The Octagon (in the middle of Dunedin) until I saw someone in a cafe eating something that looked nice, so I ended up at The Black Dog Kitchen & Bar for a very nice breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This place was closing down, or maybe relocating & getting rid of stock. I’m not clear on what sort of bookstore they were, or if they even were a bookstore specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I spent some time in the library, and booked a couple more things for the trip ahead, so … That’s done.T<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then wandered back to the railway station because it’s a nice spot to sit & wait for an eventual bus. ( The bus stop was a few streets away, but it’s just an area outside a supermarket with a couple of shelters; The station is nicer )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was only a few dollars more for the Gold Class seats, so I tried them out. Bit more room, bit more comfortable, and because they had a 2-aisle-1 setup, no seat neighbour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was halfway wondering whether the guy from the Rakiura & Invercargill & probably Dunedin hostels would also be on this bus, but he wasn’t. There was, however, someone I recognised from the Dunedin hostel, plus a couple of different people from the Rakiura one.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The coach stop on this trip was at Ettrick, a town I’d never heard of (to, I suspect, nobody’s surprise)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there’s a little caf\u00e9 with seating indoors, a nice garden outdoors with some big-ass tables, and apparently some accommodation somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s one of the things I remember from my US trip by train – You pass through these places you never knew existed, and that you’d maybe like to stay longer at, but … You can’t, because the train\/bus is leaving.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Various shots from a bus;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eventually, we got to Queenstown, which is surrounded by mountains. For some reason I didn’t realise that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d been sent late check-in instructions by the hostel, with a door code & the code to the lockbox where my key would be, but there were still people there, so … No need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rooms are named. There was a place in Edinburgh where they did that, so I think I was in the Shire room in the Sam bunk, with other folks in Frodo, Merry, & Pippin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’d booked a private room because I’m not sleeping as well as I could be these days, and that’s obnoxious in a dorm. I was expecting, because it’s Queenstown, a ludicrously expensive basic room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I got was effectively a hotel room that happens to be in a hotel, with one hell of a view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Got dinner from a Speight’s Alehouse, and it was very nice, though of all the things to screw up on an order, I didn’t expect it to be the beer. Not at a place that’s literally<\/strong> based around beer. But somehow they did it. (And fixed it, so that’s ok)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh look, a cut because of images. That’s a surprise. This was another travel day, though not an early-start day, thankfully, and I’ve got a better idea of where to kill time in Dunedin now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[93,100],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sabbatical","tag-dunedin","tag-queenstown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O6N9-1ch","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4608,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions\/4608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}