Well I think I said I would put together some type of costs post so people could see how much it costs to travel NZ so here we go.
Total Spent on Food:$339 NZD (Included going out to dinner at a restaurant twice - we didn’t have a kitchen so we ate out for all our meals except buying bread rolls, coleslaw & roast chicken one night 
- also included a little bit of alcohol from the liquor store)
Total Airfares: $216 - 2 people return Wellington > Dunedin.
Total Accomodation: $405NZD (Double Hotel Room).
Total Activities: $162 NZD (Including Taieri Gorge Trip $144 2people). - A lot of activities are free in Dunedin actually - I only just noticed!!
Total Rental Car: $44 + $5 + $25 = $74NZD (Rental, Additional Rental (exceeded km’s) & petrol).
Total $1196/ Number of Days (6)
$ /6 = $199 / 2 people = $99.66NZD per day (this can easily be reduced through eating at your hostel/hotel and staying at hostels )
Well after the AMAZING lunch we had on our last day in Dunedin I thought I would devote a post to it!!
I unfortunately didn’t get a photo of what we had to eat but here is my review:
Vino Vena
Phone: 03-479-0110
Address: 464 George Street
Directions: It is upstairs above a shop which seems to sell furniture and gift type things.
Delicious food, amazingly friendly staff and reasonably priced. We can here for lunch on our last day in Dunedin - proberly a good thing we went on our last day or I would have wanted to have lunch here every day!!
It is more of a restaurant than a coffee house and they are fully liscensed.
My chicken open sandwich was $16.50NZD, my partner had the eggs benedict (All day breakfast!!) which was $14.50NZD.
The meals are huge and well presented and are delicious! Our plane was delayed and we had all sorts of problems so ended up having dinner at nearly 11PM and lunch lasted me almost all the way until we had dinner which is great!
Highly reccomended!
Favorite Dish: Chicken Open Sandwich - It was to die for!! Thick piece of American Rye bread topped with bacon, lettuce, hashbrown & chicken tenderloins with an amazing sauce.
Well I guess no trip to Dunedin is complete without exploring the Otago Peninsula…
Theres not much to say that I havn’t said in other posts - but I HIGHLY recomend hiring a car for a day and heading out there.
Explore all the side roads you find - its pretty hard to get lost really.
Definately make it out to the end at Tairoa Head & go to Larnach Castle (maybe not so exciting if you’ve seen real castles before - in that case just drive up the road to the castle then turn around by the gate, the views are basically just as good on the drive up there). Tairoa Head is only 30km from central Dunedin so not too far - although you may clock up a few km’s exploring so allow for a max of around 150km - we did about 180km including driving around trying to find a couple of shops in random subhurbs and attempting to find Mt Cargill.
Enjoy the pics….
Well I guess this is the essential Dunedin post - all the things you should see and do - well what we saw and did and what we would and wouldn’t recommend!!
First Church: I don’t know too much about the history of this, except that it was the first church built in Dunedin and that it is an amazing building! Its just off the main street so definately worth the visit.
Taieri Gorge Railway: an half day trip which takes you from Central Dunedin Railway Station to either Middlemarch or Pukerangi (Take the one to Middlemarch if you can) - Check out my actual Taieri Gorge Railway Post for more details.
Railway Station: An awesome building - free to walk around inside and doesn’t take too long to look at so take 10 minutes or so and have a look around the outside and inside take a few pictures and if your there on a saturday morning the farmers market is held here - although its very small!
Baldwin Street: The worlds steepest street! It didn’t look like much when we got there but once we started walking up it we began to realise how steep it really was!! Definately one of those things you have to do so you can say you have walked up the world’s steepest street! Plus its free! Its located around 3km from the CBD, not too far past the Botanic Gardens. There is also a drinking fountain & seat at the top so you can catch your breath!
Cadbury Factory: Eh I wasn’t too fussed on this to be honest, possibly because we took the shortened tour which didn’t go into the factory so it wasn’t anything too wonderful and the chocolate wasn’t that cheap or different than the supermarket, so yeah if you have time and money to burn why not go but otherwise I wouldn’t bother.
Otago Peninsula: RENT A CAR! I definately suggest renting a car as the tours we found just to go to Larnach Castle cost around $50-60 each whereas our rental car cost us a total of $49 (and this wasn’t the cheapest, it was just the first company I found that would hire to under 21’s) for the day and ended up using $25 in petrol, this included a bit of running around town, exploring all the side roads we wanted on the peninsula as well as trying to find out way to Mt Cargill and getting horribly lost. Do a bit of reading up on some of the side roads, or just go down any of them - I definately suggest going down to Alan’s Beach - you drive down gravel roads and feel as if you will get lost but you will come to the end of the road and will have to get out of the car and walk over the farmers land (don’t worry this is perfectly legal ) until you get to the beach - 2-3min walk it is an amazing view!!
Larnach Castle: I took the advice of some people who have been here and just paid the entry fee to the gardens ($10 each) compared to the entry fee to the castle ($25each), as I had been told that the views were just as good from the gardens and the castle isn’t that exciting, especially if you have been to European or any other real castles. 
Botanic Gardens: Just your general botanic gardens, there are bird aviaries here as well with some beautiful birds, which, to be honest I found more exciting than the gardens but then I don’t know what any of the plants, flowers and trees are so I guess they didn’t mean all that much to me. The gardens are a decent walk from the CBD, proberly around 2km but they are worthwhile to take a look around if you don’t have much else to do, or if you are really interested in this kind of thing!
Mt Cargill: As you can see from the picture we didn’t see a lot from the top of Mt Cargill! About 1-2minutes down Mt Cargill we took another picture and it was actually a pretty decent day!! It took a lot of effort and we found Mt Cargill by chance so try and get some decent directions or you are not all that likely to find it! - I enjoyed trying to find it and I bet the view would be amazing when you are not in the clouds! Although if you don’t have a rental car or someone to drive you around I wouldn’t bother unless you are keen for a good halfday-day hike. 
Originally we wern’t going to do this trip as it it quiet expensive but in the end we decided to take the plunge and do it and I am really glad we did it - I enjoyed it ALOT!
We decided to go on the Sunday morning train which goes to Middlemarch rather than Pukerangi (I’m glad we did this as there is NOTHING in Pukerangi and I really enjoyed the scenery between Pukerangi and Middlemarch).
Some Random Pics I took on the journey and put as a Panoramic Photo.
Taieri Gorge Railway Train
Me at one of our stops on the way to Middlemarch
The viaduct in the gorge - my camera doesn’t show the awesomeness of this!
So in the end it was a great trip, we left at 9.30AM and arrived back at 3.30PM, we ended up finding a voucher for 10% off the tours (Max 2 adults) so it ended up being $72 each, down from $80 (NZD) - check out the free maps avaliable at the information centre, I believe it was the southland map we found that had the voucher on it!
This price is slightly higher than the trip the Pukerangi, although I would definately reccomend this one which goes about 1/2 an hour further in to Middlemarch.
There isn’t much to do in Middlemarch so we headed to the dairy/takeaway shop on the far side of town compared to the railway stop got some lunch and then had a quick wander around - there are some cool buildings and rock statues around town and you are provided with a map before you arrive at Middlemarch.
Don’t worry you can hear the train toot from anywhere in Middlemarch and its only a 5min stroll at the max back to the train station so you shouldn’t get left behind!
