Edinburgh of the South

Their words, not mine. But Dunedin is strikingly similar to Edinburgh right down to the gothic architecture and memorial to Scots poet Robbie Burns here. While the English settled much of the rest of NZ, the Otago peninsula was settled by the Scots. Almost the polar opposite geographically from Scotland, it is surprising the climate and landscape around the Otago Peninsula is so uncannily familiar to Scotland on the other side of the world.

Think rugged, boulder strewn coasts tangled with kelp. Rolling hill speckled with sheep and valleys blooming with yellow gorse - both imports here. The often cool, cloudy weather can be morose and brooding. But when the sun does come out their is simply no better place. The landscape is phenomenal. It doesn't end at the landscape though, the first Scots founders brought architecture that could be straight out of Edinburgh, the Anglican church reigns supreme, and you can even find good scots whisky, and hagis in this town it is rumored. Indeed the word "Dùn Èideann" is the Scots Gaellic word for Edinburgh.

Still, there are some major differences. In the Maori language Dunedin is known as Otepoti on the Otakou (Otago) peninsula of Aotearoa. Here tree ferns uncurl to the sound of tui birds dancing through native forests, blue penguins nest just down the peninsula, and the cold waters of the Antarctic wash across these shores. As familiar as it may seem to the old world, make no mistake, we are in the far south Pacific here. One of the most isolated archipelagos of Gondwanaland.