South Island Bus Adventure Day 10: Invercargill - Dunedin - Auckland

I woke up in Invercargill ready to go...after 10 days and thousands of kilometres, my great journey across New Zealand was fixing to come to an end.

I joined eight other passengers in the parking lot of the Southland museum as we waited for our bus to Dunedin, where I'd be flying back to Auckland. Today's coach was a rickety old minibus whose plush red seats had seen better days. The driver had "Classic Hits Southland" radio on in the background, and the combination of the dated music, the coach's upholstrey, and Invercargill's one-story, quarter-acre suburban housing made me feel as if we had transported in time to the 1950s.

It was a pleasant ride through what is a very agrarian part of the country, with rolling green hills and heaps of sheep. The blue sky and direct sunlight, for the first time in several days, helped as well. We drove past the big and controversial Fonterra dairy plant in Edendale, through some other small townships, and arrived in Dunedin 45 minutes early.

Dunedin (pronounced "Dunn-eden") is a cool university city, centred around a small, Harvard Square type area called the Octagon. I chose one of the eight streets around the Octagon at random, and was rewarded with a vegetarian cafe for lunch. Sweet as! After lunch, I spent the next hour or so in the Octagon, watching the birds, and taking some pictures of the plaza and of Dunedin's history railway station.

Dunedin's Railway Station, one of the most photographed buildings in NZ

I showed up at the railway station 30 minutes early for my shuttle to the airport, which I had prearranged through Nakedbus. Dunedin's airport is 30+ km away from the city centre, and there's no direct public transit link to get there. 25 minutes before my shuttle was due to arrive, I heard my name called out by a taxi driver who turned out to be Nakedbus' contractor for the area. We picked up one other guy later, but it was an otherwise semi-private taxi ride to the airport. A sign in the taxi said that the prebooked fare should have been $20 per person...I paid $9. I have no idea how these companies make any money.

Now I had 2.5 hours to kill in Dunedin International Airport--most certainly the smallest airport I've ever been to. Pacific Blue had one the one flight to Auckland operating, so the check-in counters weren't even open. What else was there to do but wait? I finished my fourth and final readthrough of "A Wild Sheep Chase" in the airport lobby.

Five of Dunedin International's 12 total check-in counters

Dunedin Airport was very, shall we say, relaxed. There were so few flights that they made an announcement over the intercom when each one arrived ("Air New Zealand is proud to announce the arrival of..."). I was never asked for any ID when I checked into my flight...I had carried around and worried about my passport for 10 days for nothing! There was no security theatre to instill a sense of fear like the US. Passing through security took 20 seconds--I left my shoes on and a bottle of Coke in my carry on bag as it went through the X-ray. The private security officer ran my backpack through again ("It's just yer padlock, mate," he said in his Cantabrian/Otago accent) and I was off--ready to cover the ground it took me 10 days to cross by land in the span of 90 minutes.

This flight was one of Pacific Blue's last domestic flights--they were pulling out of the NZ-only market to focus on trans-Tasman flights and let Air New Zealand and JetStar fight over domestic pasengers. I was treated to a beautiful sunset off the left side of the Boeing 737-800, and the South Island's mountains poked their way through the clouds. The NZ highways are mostly unlit, so there was no pattern of lights below me like flying through the US at night. We made an early landing in Auckland, and then it was off to catch the AirBus on the way back to IH.

So that's it! Finally, the end of my 10 day bus tour of New Zealand. From here, I can (finally) move on to a few Australia posts, and then some things that aren't about travel. Thanks for reading!