• Baldwin Street. Located in Dunedin's North East Valley suburb. According to the Guinness Book of Records it is the steepest street in the world. Take the ten minute walk to the top or drive up to enjoy the view looking down! There is a drinking fountain at the top. Some people have tried, and a few have succeeded, cycling all the way up Baldwin Street - try it if you're a keen cyclist.
  • Baldwin Street Gutbuster. Take part in a run up and back on the world's steepest street during the city's summer festival.
• Swim or surf the beaches. Much more fun if you wear a wetsuit. If it's a bit cold, there's a heated saltwater pool adjacent to the main beach a little north of the esplanade.

Tramping; Dunedin has some of the most easily-accessible tracks of any city in NZ. In less than half an hour you can be in pristine bush far from the worries of the world. Ask about Green Hut Track, Carey's Creek, Possum Hut, Rosella Ridge, Yellow Ridge, Rocky Ridge, Rongamai, Honeycomb, Powder Creek, Long Ridge, Swampy Ridge, Leith Saddle, Burns, Rustlers, Nichols Creek, Nichols Falls, to name just some of the fabulous tramping tracks around this city. Ask at the Visitor Centre or get "The Ultimate Tramping Guide for around Dunedin" at DoC ($10) and cut loose.

Have a few beers with the local students; alcohol is very reasonably around $6 for a jug of ale.

• Cadbury World, 280 Cumberland St,, 03, fax 03, cadburyworld@cadbury.co.nz, [7]. Daily tours running every half hour from 9am-4pm, with hours extended to 7pm during the summer. Closed Christmas Day and the morning of Anzac Day. Take a guided tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, a factory that accounts for more that 75% of New Zealand's chocolate production.

• Speights Brewery, 200 Rattray St, 03 (Tours) or 03 (Office), fax 03, tours@speights.co.nz, [8]. Shop hours: M-Th 9:30am-7pm, F-Su 9:30am-5pm. Tours daily at 10am, 12 noon, 2pm. Close Christmas day, Good Friday, Easter Saturday/Sunday, and shortened hours on ANZAC day. Children under fifteen require adult supervision. The brewery has been a Dunedin landmark since its founding in 1876. The guided tour takes you through the Speight's brewery, sharing the heritage and culture of beer, from the Babylonians to today. The tour's finale is a 25 minute beer tasting. You must be 18 years old to join in on the tasting.
• Fortune Theatre, 231 Stuart St, corner of Stuart St and Moray Pl, Box office 03, Administration 03, fax 03, [9]. Housed in a converted stone church, the Fortune Theatre provides professional live performances to the citizens of Otago.
• Hoyts 6 Octagon Cinemas, 33 The Octagon, 03. Catch a feature film in the Octagon.
• The Octagon. The city centre - it is shaped like an Octagon instead of the standard square. This part of town is very active and lots of businesses strive to be near it.
• Robert Burns statue. The over 100 year old statue of poet Robbie Burns sits in The Octagon and was recently restored. The statue was cast by a notable sculptor of Edinburgh, Scotland. This same sculptor made four other, nearly identical, statues, one of which rests in Central Park, New York.
• The Organ Pipes small columnar rock format set in a hillside with splendid views. Pleasant hike up a steep bush track from a carpark about 5 km out of town along North Road.

• The architecture
• Otago University [10] has some great old buildings to wander about and see, when Uni's in its a good place to sit, people watch and take it all in, some good food/cafes/bars are nearby too.
• The Royal Albatross colony, at Taiaroa Head, [11] is the only mainland albatross nesting site in the world. It is an hour's drive along the western coast of Otago Peninsula on a road that skirts the water for most of its length without any guardrail. In places, the city buses which frequent the road are wider than the lanes (the local traffic is used to this, and drives very carefully), so if you don't trust your driving reflexes, take a coach instead. Albatrosses may be seen during the summer months, as well as other wildlife at all times of the year. Guided tours of the colony and the old fortifications on and under the headland are conducted daily.
• Otago Museum - There is free internet in learning section on the second floor
• Carisbrook - The House of Pain! Where great rugby and cricket games are won and lost.
• The university (Otago University) - some beautiful old stone buildings, with one or two impressive newer buildings and the Water of Leith running through.
• Tunnel beach - The story goes that crazy old Cargill had a steep tunnel cut through the stone cliff, so his daughter could go to the beach. Some stories say she later drowned, but it's a lovely beach all the same, and the tunnel is very spooky. You need to walk over farmland to get there, so access is banned during lambing. See the visitor's centre in the Octagon for further information.
• Otago Peninsula - much scenic coastline including rugged points and headlands, wildfowl-laden mud flats and beautiful Allans Beach (plus several smaller beaches) on the south/east coast, and picturesque hamlets on the north/west coast (including a pretty and peaceful cemetery on a little spit of land called Dunoon, many boat-houses and a miniscule beach). Seals, sea-lions and other interesting fauna turn up at all of the southern/eastern beaches.
• Otakou marae - a Maori church and meeting-house, which gave the Otago Peninsula its name. Find it on a side-road near Harington Point, at the outer (nother/east) end of the Peninsula.
• Larnach Castle [12]. Billed as "the only castle" in New Zealand, it's very pretty but technically only a manor house and there is another (ruined, but being restored) building in the same predicament called Cargill's Castle in the southern suburbs of Dunedin. Lanarch Castle has a rich and interesting history.

By plane

• Dunedin International Airport, DUD, [2]. A domestic and international airport.
  • Air New Zealand, 0800 737 000, [3]. Flies domestically to/from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and internationally to/from Melbourne (October-March), Sydney, and Brisbane. Flying time ranges from 3 hours 20 minutes from Melbourne to 4 hours from Brisbane.

Dunedin airport is 30 kilometres out of town on the nearest piece of flat land that was big enough. Taxis and shuttle buses operate from just outside the terminal and are usually there when flights arrive. The fare for a shared shuttle is around $NZD 15 and for NZD$45-50 for a taxi to Dunedin. All of the major rental car operators also serve the airport.

By train

The railway station is close to the centre of town. Unfortunately there is no longer a regular long distance passenger train service, but some people arrive in the city by the local scenic trains. These are operated by the Taieri Gorge Railway, which run out as far as Middlemarch. A connecting bus service to Queenstown can be arranged.

By car

State Highway 1 passes through Dunedin. Allow 4 to 5 hours travel from Christchurch and 2 to 3 hours travel from Invercargill. Be sure to get a good detailed map as soon as you can. Most hostels have very detailed maps for the downtown area with reasonable details for the outlying areas. The roads can be very confusing with lots of one way streets and circles.

By bus

There are several daily services from Christchurch, Invercargill, Wanaka and Queenstown. The major operators are Intercity, Atomic Shuttles, Wanaka-Connection and Knightrider. (which offers an overnight service from Christchurch to Invercargill via Dunedin). nakedbus.com has the cheapest bus fares starting at $1! The trip from (or to) Christchurch takes about 6.5 hours.

By bus

The Dunedin Bus Service is fairly average but cheap and does get you around. The main line service, St Clair-Normanby, runs every 15 minutes and is handy to about a dozen of the City's attractions. Most other routes are every 30-40 minutes. Some of the buses are not too attractive looking, but they are being added to by cast-off wheelchair friendly buses from other cities. The blue/gold coloured buses operated by Citibus [[4]] and the beige/dark red buses operated by Passenger Transport share all the town routes. Most drivers from either company will tell you where to find the right bus if you ask nicely, or you can ask the Otago Regional Council [[5]] or call 0508-474-082 free from a cell phone, but only during office hours. The Peninsula bus route from the Museum is a good way to see the Peninsula, unless you're terrified by oncoming traffic: in places the full sized buses are wider than the lanes they travel in. The traffic is generally used to this and travels very cautiously. All Buses on the Peninsula service are Wheel Chair Friendly.

By bicycle

There is a recycling centre down by the north-east end of the docks (in Wickliffe Street) which generally has one or two reasonable-condition bicycles lying about for NZ$10 apiece. Carefully add air (there's a service station due west back over the bridge) and oil and you're set to go. You will also need a skid-lid/stack-hat/helmet, which are generally unavailable second-hand for liability reasons, but can be had new for NZD$20 from the KMart in Meridian, between George Street and Filleul Street. There is another recycling shop called "The Recover Store" at the Dunedin Landfill on Brighton Road, Green Island.

Dunedin's hills are extremely steep but the town centre is reasonably flat There is an excellent flat ride out along the western shore of the Otago Peninsula to Harington Point, although it's a narrow road shared by lots of tour buses. A cycle track runs along of the industrial eastern shore of the harbour, about half way to Port Chalmers (busy highway the rest of the way).

If you like a bit of a hill-climb, ride out along North Road to the Organ Pipes, a collection of rapidly-cooled rocks which have self-formed into organ-pipe-like structures. The walk along a bush track up to the Pipes themselves is very scenic and well attended by small, harmless wildlife. The ride up along the ridge of the Peninsula to Lanarch Castle is also good high-energy exercise.

If you like pushing a bike up a hill because it's too steep, dive off NorthRoad onto Norwood Street, or cross to the east side of the Peninsula, or head straight up the hill behind The Octagon past the Beverly-Begg Observatory to suburbs with a view like Roslyn.

By train

There are no suburban trains. The Taeri Gorge Railway [6] tel +64-3-477-4449 is a scenic tourist trip, ending at a small village called Middlemarch. Take your camera and lots of memory. The same company runs trips on the old Christchurch line as far as Palmerston, about 2 hours away. These go about twice a week in the summer.

• Tapui Childrens Books, 449 Princess St, 03 479 2940, fax 03 471 8036, tapui@es.co.nz, [15]. M-Fr 9am-5:30pm, Sa 10am - 1pm. Founded in 1973, Tapui started focusing on children's books almost 20 years ago. The store is only 5 minutes walk from the Octagon and they also operate a travelling bookshop that visits area schools.

For the desperate, McDonalds is at 232 George Street, where an internet cafe is attached.

George Street is just littered with all kinds of restaurants, starting about two blocks north of The Octagon (in the centre of Dunedin). There are also a few interesting places on Albany Street, which runs across the south of the University Of Otago.

They're used to students and other tightwads, too. The wiki for the LCA2006 Linux conference hosts some photos of them, which will eventually be pushed into a local (Dunedin) wiki.

Dunedin has some amazing food! If you are in Dunedin on a Friday definitely check out the Friday bakery in Roslyn village (you'd have to be early though all the good desserts go very fast!!) then there is a cafe and wine shop called Rhubarb across the road, both are amazing.

If you're looking for brunch type foods on Saturday the farmers market at the Railway Station has delicious delicacies such as crepes (including gluten free), the popular "bacon buttie", Whitebait fritters, and baking as well as fresh fruit and veges.

Budget

Being NZ, if you want Fish and Chips, you go to a Chinese restaurant for them. Don't know why, but it works. The prices are pretty good, although the fish servings are typically only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the size of the Australian counterpart.

The Good Oil down George Street (the main street) offers free coffee and herbal teas to tourists, their coffee may be burnt and bitter, but at least it is free.

One interesting local speciality is kumara chips, made with a local sweet-potato variant and typically priced at about double the cost of potato chips. Very tasty!

The kiwis are also good at making ice cream, and many places (including little delis and general stores at places like MacAndrew Bay) sell cones for fairly reasonable prices (e.g. NZD$1.90 for a double cone).

• Satay Noodle House, Hanover Street (Opposite the Hannah's Meridian entrance) has good Cambodian and Thai food at cheap prices ~$7, Be warned they don't have EFTPOS but there's a ATM across the road.

• Circadian Rhythm Vegan Cafe, 72 St. Andrew St (03 474 9994), offers a great daily buffet for just $8.50. And they are gluten and dairy free as well.

For the freshest local organic produce, including fruit, vegetables, eggs, bread, cheese, etc it's a good idea to check out the Farmer's Market. It's on Saturday mornings, 8AM til around 12:30PM next to the railway station.

Mid-range

• Jizo, 56 Princes St, (03 479 2692). This Japanese restaurant is the best in town. Hands down. If you want to be impressed, then order one of the Katsu dishes. Deluxe Katsu is good as is the Chicken Katsu. Damn good sushi to boot.

• Zucchini Bros, 292 Highgate, Roslyn. (03-477 9373). Fantastic pizza & pasta from the Bros.. Lovely staff and the menu is tried and true. Get a no.20 pizza, and the Chicken & Mushroom pasta is hard to beat. Serving Emersons and Green Man beer. These guys deliver also.

Splurge

• Bath St just before the Octagon off George St. Great small, dark and somewhat random place to enjoy sounds. Has a mix of music from banging drum n bass nights to reggae chill. Sometimes its the only place hidden away thats going off!