Sunday 8th November 2009 (PM) - Dunedin

Dunedin – what a great city and we have had an awesome time, made even better by the beautiful fine day. We started off with a show and shine outside the AA centre which is down amongst the car yards. Gary washed his car twice this morning, but only because he and Marian got it dirty after the first wash when they went for a morning tramp! All of the cars are getting washed every 2nd day due to the driving and show n shining that we are doing – my own car has never looked so clean!

Anyway we had 19 Capri’s on show and an Otago Daily Times reporter came down to get some details and a photo for an article – so we’ll have to grab that and the Southland Times (hopefully Monday’s issue) to see if we feature.
We are compiling a list of everyone who participates in the tour in any way even if you just join in around your home town – we are taking a photo of each person with their car so that we have a complete record so make sure that you get this done by either Karen, Darryl or Lindsay when you join in. We are trying to get as many people as possible to carry the Time Capsule and the photo here is of Les & Sonya from Dunedin showing that they were there creating Capri NZ history.

From the show we convoyed 18 cars through and around Dunedin until we reached Signal Hill lookout – what a fabulous view – Lindsay and Tony thought they would get an even better view and climbed to the top of the monument and while they were up there took some great pics of the cars lined up 2 deep in the carpark – well the back ends of the cars anyway.

From there we split into two groups, some went straight to Carey’s Bay for afternoon tea while the rest took to the challenge of Baldwin St – which is recognised as the World’s Steepest Street (Guinness book of records in 1998) – it has a gradient of 1 : 2.86. All the attempts were successful (both up and even with the Capri brakes – down), and many of us our now sporting stickers to prove it – and there were even successes in walking and in Odette’s case running up the street!

Having joined the others at Carey’s Bay we all (17 of us now) then convoyed to Larnach Castle (one of only two castles in NZ) and took the opportunity to line the cars up along the front of the castle for our own personal photo shoot. We were nearly ready to go when we hear the distinct rumble of another Capri – and who should make their way up to join the crowd but JP and Erica – a nice surprise as we didn’t think we’d see them until Monday.

Then we headed down to the bottom of the hill for a well earned meal, some of us having taken our cars back to the accommodation so that we could do the responsible thing and celebrate Dunedin properly.
This meal was our farewell to many of the wonderful Southerners that we have been fortunate to meet this weekend, however not everyone wanted to leave so now we have an extra couple of cars for the tour north – do you think we can convince them to hit Kaitaia???? It’s been great meeting everyone and we have all made new friends who too have been rapt with the weekend – thank you Invercargill/Dunedin – we will be back!