Part of the deal of this new contract I’m on with MTF is that they wanted me pretty much full time in the Dunedin office for the first 3-4 months. They would pay for me to have an apartment and a car whenever I wanted one, they just wanted me there. I had a chat to Nigel and he agreed ok let’s move to Dunedin… leading up to winter! Maybe it’ll snow?  

So we packed up and flew to Dunedin and checked into our little city apartment.  One block from the octagon, one block from the supermarket and two blocks from work. 

In the first few days we worked out that a few things would make our time in the apartment a bit nicer so off Nigel went to the warehouse. We bought Bee cards for the buses and set about exploring Dunedin. I had an entire company of colleagues to give handy hints on places to go and so followed their lead and found some great local haunts.

Speaking of my MTF colleagues, what a lovely smart bunch of people. In what is actually a very complex business I have encountered nothing but patience with learning the language and a genuine willingness to share expertise. We also spend every lunchtime doing the Otago Daily Times quiz in the the lunchroom and every Friday, there’s chips and dips and drinks. There’s soup and bread days every couple of weeks in Winter to warm you up. And in my time so far we have had two dress up days to raise money for local charities. At the end of the year there will be a volunteering day where everyone can give back to the local community. I thought we had loads of free food and drinks in Media!

We had some weekends that were absolute Dunner Stunners so we’d walk around seeing everything in the city. Castle street with all the student flats was as broken glass rubbish all over the place and grotty houses as you would think. The botanical gardens has free duck food and so if you feel like getting attacked by ducks and seagulls you are welcome to go get some. Watch out when the seagulls feet get caught in your hair. 

Loads of really nice restaurants in town and an awesome fully roofed stadium. We went to an open day there to have a look and it’s such a great venue. We then went to see an absolutely incredible All Blacks v France game.  the Octagon was closed off for the whole day with bars and street food. Bands played and we all congregated to walk to the stadium accompanied by a bag piper. It was freezing cold there was an air of excitement and we loved our walk to Forsyth Barr. What a great stadium. So much better equipped than Eden Park, more toilets, more food and drink stands, more buses to get you away from the area after the game. I did however think I was going to die by spectacularly falling down the incredibly steep north stadium concrete stairs. Truly brilliant experience. And all of them covered seats! No rain ponchos required. 

The locals respect when any artist or game comes to Dunedin and everyone I knew was somewhere there that night: they know that if they don’t sell out they will miss out. 

One of the first Dunner Stunner weekends we got a car and went to the albatross colony and saw the Armstrong disappearing gun. Built in 1889 when there was a fear that the Russian’s were going to take over. This massive gun had the ability to pop out of the ground, fire off a round and then duck back down before it hit the ship. “Shit! Where the heck did that come from” would have been the response from the Russians. The gun never got fired in anger though even after it was brought back for the Second World War. But a group of locals have lovingly restored it and it’s a pretty interesting wee part of Dunedin history. 

There were 36 albatross chicks there and we got to see the parents fly in with their feet outstretched to feed the chicks incredibly un-gangly creatures but super cool nevertheless less. 

We walked the beaches keeping well clear of the sea lions and seals. One of the locals told me it was really bad form and you will be verbally reprimanded to allow your dog anywhere near the sea lions if you took them for an off leash walk. I wondered if any of that would work at Orewa beach considering the huge number of out of control dogs you see there.

So we started living our best Dunedin city apartment life. It was a bit of a curated Dunedin experience though as it was a serviced apartment with double glazing and central heating and underfloor heating. So apart from the short 5 minute walk to work and back we were super warm! We did have frost a few days so the footpaths were a bit slippy.

We also have to keep reminding ourselves that living in a city isn’t just a living in Dunedin thing.

There are large numbers of homeless people around our apartment and you get to know the characters. On a Sunday morning there might be a shopping trolley and a couple of road cones dumped at your front door. We regularly see and hear the students joking about outside on the weekends despite the double glazing. But it’s all part of the fun. 

We took the railroad to Oamaru for the Steampunk festival, we did the Taiarei Railway trip, the Dunedin mid winter festival, went to Arc Brewery twice for food trucks and great brews, and went to Aramoana to walk amongst the sealions. We walked everywhere, tried a different restaurant every weekend and found our favourite spots to return to (shout out to Biggies Pizza Dunedin).

And then it was over. We packed up our little apartment life, donated all our half used boxes of spices and half used bottles of oil to anyone who wanted them in the lunchroom. Had three check in bags to brings home and that was it. Back to reality oops there goes gravity. Next stop the fortnightly three day commute. 

Hotly interspersed with the jennigeltravel trip of 2025 to Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo kicking off end of August. Before heading back to Dunedin end of September to begin fortnights again. It’s all happening here. 

Dunedin we loved you. You are such a beautiful city. Your wildlife accessibility is amazing. Your weather (while cold) is so much nicer than Auckland. Your bluebird days are stunners. And your people? Genuinely lovely and thoughtful and chatty in the coffee shops. Your hospitality staff are awesome as they are all studying medicine or dentistry or some other person based profession. And most importantly as the saying goes, you’re never more than seven minutes from anywhere in Dunedin!

I laugh in the lunchroom when I hear people complain about how it took 12 minutes to get home last night instead 7. 

So grateful for our awesome Dunedin experience.