Hello Antarctica!
- vathsanclan
- Feb 5, 2018
- 5 min read
Maybe it's not the most accurate title because we are still not sending to you greetings from Antarctica.... But once you live in Dunedin ( at the bottom of South Island ), share your beach with penguins, seals and sea lions, struggle with the cold southern wind blowing straight from the South Pole, cooling your air instantly and even causing sometimes snow falls, you feel more entitled to use this Antarctica word , more than ever before.
Dunedin, au contraire of how an average person would like to read this name, should be pronounced Duh-nee-din. So a bit of a letter-twist here, this is because its name comes from Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh. So you can look at our city as is the Edinburgh of Southern Hemisphere :) you can equally call it Otepoti, because that is Dunedin's Maori name for it.
Today I wanted to share with you some stories about our beginnings.
When we first got here our biggest challenge was figuring out where should we live. Based on this decision, we wanted to look for a kindergarten and arrange our daily routine. We knew Vathsan will be working at the Port and it's a bit away from the city so we were considering his daily commute, but it was just a small input to much bigger equation. Initially we were staying for 3 weeks in a motel which was situated in a student area. Dunedin is home to the University of Otago, New Zealand's oldest University (established 1869) and Otago Polytechnic. City's total population of about 120.000 consist in 21% of students. We actually really liked the vibe of this part of the town, our kids equally enjoyed watching young people party, wearing only underwear, on top of a roof on a "single digit" temperature day. But it was not the most practical choice, so we were focused to rent somewhere else.
*fun fact : A cool band six60 was formed here, they created their name from the street number of the house they lived at, 660 Castle Street. Just watch the video to see that house and get the feel of the student area :
It turned out the sun was a major factor when it comes to choosing your accommodation in Dunedin. In the north part of Northern Hemisphere all buildings should be pointing south, so the houses can stay warm, dry and sunny. Because first settlers were working on our city plans in Europe, before arriving here, they designed everything south facing... like in Europe. They came here and according to the plans built a south facing city. Except...here in the south bit of Southern Hemisphere everything should be facing north....if you are hoping for a building to catch the best sun. So we spent some time on-line, doing a research and trying to understand how to recognize a good north-facing house, and don't get accidentally stuck with a cold south-facing one. Now we know, that when you come to see an open home,the easiest way to do it is to simply turn on compass app on your phone and look for north :) Ideally you want the biggest amount of windows pointing north. North and north- west windows are really good, strategically the most useful is if those are you living room / dining/ kitchen areas. Wherever you think you as a family will be the most socializing.
*fun fact number two : Do you know this popular outdoor company called The North Face? It's name was given to show respect to the fact that the north face of a mountain in the Northern Hemisphere is generally the coldest, iciest and most formidable route to climb. Now knowing that, I have a feeling for the products sold here in Southern Hemisphere we should be getting some special South Face edition :)
Now, after #2 fun fact, you can possibly imagine, we were not only after a good north-facing house, but we were equally figuring out how to be on a good side of the hill. Dunedin is a city with some flat areas by the sea, and the city center is equally rather flat, but it's surrounded by hills. Hills are really tricky. Some houses have much more sun over summer and barely any over winter. Some can be situated on a good side of the hill but if you are unlucky and are next to a big neighbour ,his house might be simply casting shadow on yours no matter which season.
After spending 3 weeks in the motel we finally rented a house in St Leonards. It was halfway between the Port and the city. It was a beautiful 1920's villa, with calming harbour-view. It was not the most sun-sensible choice, because if you look at the map, we were at the wrong, less sunny side of the harbour. We rented our villa in the spring, summer was on it's way and we were hoping to be out of this house before winter. We were aware of the sun issue, but at this point we decided to stay optimistic and focused on other goals we had on our horizon.
Sun was one issue when it comes to Dunedin housing, contracts were another one. In Auckland houses were selling very fast , landlords were happy to rent houses on flexible " periodic" contracts. They had no expiry dates, till landlord or tenant gives written notice to end it. Tenant's minimum notice was 21 days, landlord's 90 days or 42, based on certain circumstances. In Dunedin housing market is very stable. Summer is when houses are being sold and rented. Winter is usually very slow and there are not many properties for sale or for rent on the market. Houses are rented for exactly 12 months. If you want to move out earlier is your responsibility to pay the rent till a new tenant comes in and takes over your broken lease.
We came across some interesting houses but they were all for 12 months fixed term contracts. This was not what we were after.
The St Leonards house, we got on our good ,old Auckland terms, just as we wanted.
As you probably could read in my two my older posts, (Bye Bye Auckland and Settled for good? ) I was explaining what were our motivations to move out of Auckland. Buying a house was a big one. So...after renting a house in St Leonards for about 3 months we moved in to our own. We ended up buying a place by the surfer's beach. it's on the flats so sun was not an issue anymore. As usual we swapped one issue for another. We are living now in the flood prone area, with a risk of tsunami :) Oh, well I guess you can not have everything, right? At the end of the day, sun shines daily, if you are unlucky flooding happens few times per year and earthquakes even less often. So far water only stays in our garden, never made it's way to our house, so we should be fine.
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