George Street – Buy or view the Ōtepoti | Dunedin gallery

Leaving the pier feeling a little damp, I pointed my car in the direction of town and proceeded to join light traffic that was heading in the same direction. On my way I noticed that overnight some creative individual had put googly eyes on all the faces of the local body election advertising billboards. An idea that I must admit was very amusing. It’s very hard to take a mayoral candidate seriously when they’re wearing a set of googly eyes! 

The drive into town was slow and tedious. The streets were filled with an usual amount of student drivers, all of whom clutched at the steering wheel looking terrified and not too stable. Oddly enough, in every vehicle (and there were at least five of them), in the passenger seat sat an adult looking equally terrified, and in one case so petrified that I swear he was about to eject himself from the vehicle at any moment. 

When at last I arrived in town,I am sorry that things didn’t go as smoothly. Or, to put it another way, I remembered why I’d stopped visiting the city centre. You see, it comes down to parking! Where in god’s name do people park in the city centre, there simply isn’t anywhere to park! In Dunedin’s attempt to spruce up the main street while at the same time replacing old water, wastewater and stormwater pipes in the central city — some dating back to the late 1800s, some upgrades are happening. This means that multiple blocks have been closed while the construction takes place. The unfortunate thing is that Dunedin’s city centre just isn’t big enough for it to go unnoticed or to not affect the vast majority of visitors. This situation isn’t helped by Dunedin currently suffering from a lack of bus drivers meaning that the darn things don’t turn up from time to time. Not something that is very helpful when the city centre is suffering from a lack of visitors or parking spaces. 

So it was that I joined a long line of cars circling a section of the city, ready to pounce the moment a space became free. Doing this, I managed to listen to half a Green Day album before I spotted a vehicle about to leave. Leaping into action I did what I hate other drivers doing, I waited! A car behind me showed his annoyance by tooting however on this occasion I simply didn’t care! My knuckles were white, my jaw was jaw clenched and my resolve was firm. I didn’t care how much traffic I held up, I was getting the parking spot. Something I celebrated with a friendly wave to the passing queue that said, so long suckers!