Cadbury World

Saturday, August 13, 2011
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
We woke up at around 9am and got ready straight away so that we could make it to the 'Farmers Market' in time for breakfast. We both got a mince pie for breakfast as well as a cake, which Andrew got all over his face as he ate the thing. We admired the very grand Edwardian 'Train Station' which was designed by George Troup and thus acquired the nickname "Gingerbread George". The southern end of the building was dominated by a 37 metre high clocktower and the booking hall featured a dramatic mosaic floor. We then headed towards 'The Octagon' which was as the name suggested an eight-sided plaza that marked Dunedin city centre. A number of Dunedin's significant buildings faced the plaza including the 'Town Hall', 'Regent Theatre', 'Public Art Gallery' and 'St. Paul's Cathedral'. We walked around the plaza and we became baffled at just how quiet the place was considering it was midday on a Saturday. We couldn't quite work out if there was a main shopping street, but if there was it certainly wasn't bustling. I couldn't wait to visit 'Cadbury World' so we made it our next stop. We arrived just after 12pm and the next tour was at 12:30pm so we had some time to look around a gallery that outlined the history of chocolate and the Cadbury company. As we were sat in the waiting area Adam and Finlay randomly appeared as they came to buy some chocolate just as our tour guide turned up. She was wearing a pair of dungarees in the Cadbury purple colour and was the cheesiest person I have met in my entire life. I just had to glance at Andrew to realise that he was going to hate the next forty-five minutes of his life! We were firstly and rightly given a bag of chocolate and as I had a broken wrist I was given a little bit extra. We then had a seat to watch a video about the making of Cadbury chocolate at Dunedin before being shown outside to look at two vintage delivery trucks that were used to transport Cadbury chocolate around New Zealand. We were told that it took around one week to complete the journey from Invercargill to Auckland as the delivery truck had a maximum speed of 20km per hour. We then entered the Cadbury factory and we were instantly hit by the smell of chocolate. Our tour guide explained the chocolate making process beginning with a cocoa bean and ending with a bar of Dairy Milk. We then made our way to the enormous purple silo which loomed high in the sky to observe a one tonne liquid chocolate waterfall. The final stop on the tour involved tasting warm, gooey, liquid chocolate whilst watching a film explaining the process of making Jaffas and Pebbles which are Cadbury products only available in New Zealand. Andrew felt sick after one pot of liquid chocolate but I helped myself to another pot as we made our way to the gift shop. We couldn't resist buying more chocolate, especially since there was a discount bin! We left 'Cadbury World' and called into 'Countdown' supermarket before we got back in our campervan to drive to 'Baldwin Street'. 

We parked at the bottom of 'Baldwin Street' which was the steepest residential street in the world . Andrew was desperate to drive up the street in our campervan but I didn't trust the thing so instead we walked up. On the way up we saw a poor cat slip as the street was so steep! We made it to the top where there was quite a view over Dunedin city. After a short rest we made our way back down and drove to 'Mount Cargill' where we made the rather steep and tiring walk to the 'Organ Pipes'. We got a decent view of the aptly named rock formations and Andrew even scrambled over some of the fallen rock much to my annoyance as there was a sheer drop. We then began the walk to 'Mount Cargill' but it was never-ending so after about thirty minutes we turned around and made it back down to the car park. We drove to our campsite and had something to eat before driving into the city centre to go to the cinema. I was disappointed once again as the cinema only sold salty popcorn but we had plenty of leg room to watch 'Horrible Bosses'. We returned to our campsite and ate so much Cadbury chocolate that Andrew felt sick before he went to bed.  
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