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 CHAPTER XII

Dunedin—Miscellaneous Ben Rudd and Flagstaff Hill—Roomy Invercargill—State Oysters—Romantic Stewart Island

hundred and thirty miles southwest of Christchurch is Dunedin, the fourth city in population in New Zealand and the chief gateway to Fiordland and the Cold Lakes. It is reached by one of the most interesting railway routes in the country. For a large part of the way its sea vistas rival those of the Southern Pacific's Coast Line in California, and for many miles the train passes through meadows and wheat-fields divided by gorse-hedges. On this route, also, are Timaru, a well-built town with the prettiest beach in New Zealand, and Oamaru, the stone city where a brick chimney is an uncommon sight. Dunedin is noted for its Scotch characteristics. It was founded by Scots, and it is said to have more Scottish residents than any other New Zealand city. Proof of Scotch individuality I saw there on every hand; in the Octagon, where one side of the street is graced by a monument to Robert Burns, and the other side by a memorial to the Reverend Thomas Burns, the first Presbyterian minister in Otago; in handsome Presbyterian churches; in Caledonian and Burns societies; in marching pipers, in reels, flings, and hornpipes; and yet again in the railway station immediately on my arrival.