Oamaru & Dunedin

When we left the Southern Alps towards the east coast after a few days, we initially passed through a very barren landscape.

Here, it is only green where it is irrigated:

Even where natural water sources should green the landscape, the mountains remain strangely bare. Maybe you can see from the photo that it's pretty windy here:

We still find this landscape beautiful! It's once again one of the many changes that the South Island has in store.

At this point, Anette bravely jumped into the river...

...and had a pleasant bathe despite the current and the wind.

With such fresh enthusiasm, we then went to the next city, to:

++++++ Oamaru ++++++

Somehow, when we come directly from nature, we always seem to be drawn first to the parks of the cities. In Oamaru, it was no different.

So we first visited the Oamaru Public Gardens - a very beautifully laid out park...

Okay, not everything in the park was beautiful...

Next, we went to the city center of Oamaru, which proclaims itself as the Victorian style capital of New Zealand:

Oamaru is the Steampunk capital of New Zealand. What is Steampunk? Wikipedia explains it like this:

"Steampunk (from English steam 'steam' and American punk 'bad', 'worthless', autonomously 'punk') is a phenomenon that first appeared as a literary movement in the 1980s and has developed into an art genre, a cultural movement, a style, and a subculture. On the one hand, modern and futuristic technical functions are combined with means and materials of the Victorian era, creating a distinct retro look of the technology."

You can actually see the Victorian genre in the buildings in Oamaru.

In Oamaru, there is an annual Steampunk Festival, during which the residents of the city walk around in their Victorian clothes and market and indulge in their art ideas. Unfortunately, we weren't here during the festival, but the Steampunk Museum gives an impression of what it could look like:

Important elements of Steampunk art are, besides steam, many metallic elements (railways, art made of metal), and a great deal of creativity. The exhibition in the museum is sometimes quite bizarre...

(Hannes is helping a somewhat rusty gentleman with the latest technology.)

Anette really liked this model train:

The individual cars seem to be made of old metal and old taillights/blinkers.

On this locomotive, you can also see that Steampunk is less about functionality and more about the atmosphere created by the works.

We were particularly taken with this small mirrored room, 'the portal':

You enter, flip a switch, and enjoy serene, atmospheric music while the many lamps hanging from the ceiling light up in different colors. Simply enchanting!

Due to the mirrored surfaces on all sides of the room, you can look up, down, left, and right into infinity(!) and always see a sea of changing colors.

We found that so beautiful that we visited 'the portal' again at the end :)

The rather small museum also extended to a courtyard where these impressive machines were displayed:

It's also nice to see reptiles represented artistically here! :)

As you walk through the city center of Oamaru, you come across unusual art and shops again and again.

This café seems to have 'iron and rust' as its motto:

After exploring all the art scene in Oamaru, we continued to the second largest city on the South Island.

+++++++ Dunedin ++++++++

Oh, oh. The weather didn't look good at all. And unfortunately, it would stay that way for the next two weeks...!

We settled in at this sleeping place for a few nights. Unfortunately, our hope that the rain would go away was not fulfilled. It actually got worse, and some days were extremely windy as well.

When the pouring rain didn't obscure our view, the sleeping place was really beautiful:

During the day, we commuted to Mosgiel to borrow internet from the local library. We were able to make good use of these rainy days to look for jobs in Germany and apply. Yes, yes - slowly but surely, we have to start thinking about the more serious future again :)

We just hope that the future doesn't look as gray as the sky here these days...

We probably won't stay in New Zealand longer than May, even though our visa allows us to stay until September. Because from at least June onwards, it looks like this everywhere here:

So we'd rather come back to you and bring the European summer with us :)

On a nearly rain-free day, we were finally able to visit the city center of Dunedin:

This beautiful train station was built in 1978 and represents Victorian and Edwardian architecture in its style.

The city center also resembles the Europe of the 17th century...

...mixed with a touch of the Wild West.

Dunedin is a city surrounded by hills, as you can see everywhere in the distance.

This house is for sale. Anyone interested? :)

Finally, from Dunedin, a chic car:

And then we continued on to Invercargill. But we'll tell you about that another time :)

Wet regards...!

HanNZette