A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

This is my second weekend in Dunedin and I wanted to use each day to its fullest. Its hard considering it is winter here and the days are pretty short and secondly, I'm recovering from a wonderful cold. I've gotten a lot of recommendations from locals about "must do" activities while in Dunedin. I wanted to cram everything into one weekend and so far, I've succeeded!

This morning, I woke up to do a 5k run/death march around the Dunedin Harbor basin. Its a popular running/biking track which goes around the harbor basin with awesome views of the city hills and surrounds.

Sunrise at the Harbor Basin Trail

 I call it a death march because I was told that it was flat but these people have NO idea what flat means. I lived in Phoenix for the past 5 years, a city which is flat as a pancake. This running trail around the harbor is not flat. I felt the burn which is why it was only a 5K run instead of my usual 10K! I felt bad on not running my "normal" amount of time so to make up for the lack of running I decided to walk to the botanical gardens from my hotel.

The walk seemed simple enough. It was a beautiful route through the University of Otago, across a small river bridge and then into the gardens onto a trail. The university was beautiful and it reminded me of my good ol college days so long ago. I don't know what it is about universities around the world but they all have the same features: big, old imposing stone buildings, a clock tower and pretty grounds perfect for lazy days lounging about. University of Otago was no different.

Main Square at University of Otago

After wandering around the campus, I started into the Botanical Gardens of Dunedin. I am not a garden-y type of girl. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE trees and grass and plants but I have never made a deliberate stop into a botanical garden. I don't really look at the tags in front of plants nor do I wonder about their species and classification. This botanical garden blew me away! I originally planned on going through it just because it had a walking track through it and I figured I'd get some extra exercise but I ended up meadering through for hours. It was so beautiful! Just the sheer number of trees and plants was amazing. I won't bore you with the details of all the cool things that I learned but I will say that I saw my first Giant California Redwood Tree and Giant Sequoia in Dunedin, New Zealand!!! Its embarassing to say that I had to travel half way around the world to see trees indigenous to my country and only hours away from where I lived for the last 5 years!!!!

Giant California Redwood

Rock Garden in the Botanical Gardens

Frosty day at the Gardens

Anyway, my "extra exercise time" ended up being a 2 hour walk. At the end, the little birds were starting to look like tasty appetizers so I figured it was time to head back in. I was cold, hungry and tired but it was a beautiful day in my neigborhood!