Street light on Devon Street, Arrowtown – Buy or view the Ōtepoti | Dunedin gallery

Geographically, Dunedin is in a rather odd place. Due to the fact that it is surrounded by hills, if you want to go in any direction by vehicle, you have two options. Let me explain! If you want to travel north, you have to head north along the Northern motorway. If you want to head south, you have to travel south along the Southern motorway. If you want to head west, you have to first travel north or south for 55 kilometers (35 miles) before turning west, and if you want to head east then you need to get a boat. As I was driving inland to Arrowtown, in a kind of west by north-west direction (some 270km away), I could either first head north or south before pointing the car inland. So, with the flip of a coin, on a cold and wet Dunedin evening, I headed south. 

An hour was spent in Friday evening traffic that traveled at a brisk but uneventful pace. I stopped and ate at a Subway restaurant in Milton, I listened to a podcast and generally tried my best to not become a statistic of the long weekend road toll. I drove through places like the Manuka Gorge, Beaumont, Rae’s Junction, Judge Creek, Benger Burn and Slaughter House Creek, where there was occasional drizzle, some wind and a Lexus driver that didn’t seem to know the give way rule, or how to calculate a safe following distance while traveling at speeds in excess of 100km per hour. I stopped and looked at stars at Lake Dunstan, discovered newly formed round-abouts in Cromwell and watched the temperature drop by 10 degrees to -1 at my final destination, Arrowtown, just in time for a beer and a short walk in the chilly night air.