Kia ora ki a [r/dunedin](r/dunedin)!

I’m after some advice from the experts. I’m weighing up my options for moving to the South Island, and Dunedin is one of the most appealing options to me. It’s a combination of weather, location, affordability, and #vibes based on what I’ve heard.

1. What do you think people don’t know, but should before they move there?
2. What do you think some of the common misconceptions are about Dunedin?
3. What suburbs are affordable and safe, and which ones should be avoided for the overly risk averse (me!)?

4. What are your favourite local things? It can be anything, food, activities, nature, etc.

5. What do you dislike, or what isn’t acknowledged/talked about enough?

General insights, tips, and suggestions are also welcome!

Ka mihi maioha ki a koutou!

Hello everyone, have had a very frustrating time, asshole parked over our driveway😖

Tried calling the council.. SHUT! tried calling the non-emergency line.. “can’t do anything”. I looked up the laws on parking over a public driveway and it says police officers can get a tow-truck to take their car away if it’s obstructing an entrance across a driveway. ( Land Transport Act 1998)

Called a towing company and did not take me seriously said they couldn’t do anything and laughed when i thanked them and said bye 😭 if anyone knows any other ways that we can get this FREAK off of our driveway please let me know!

(the car behind is also illegally parked they park like this EVERY DAY.)

Hi!

My wife and I learned about the July 2028 eclipse, and saw Dunedin in the path of totality. Just for fun, we looked into making the trip there. If we start planning now, we can probably afford it. We're doing some research, including looking at this subreddit. I'm enjoying the historical photos and stories about the wacky elected official (so relatable) but I wanted to reach out to see how people there feel about tourists.

We live in Cleveland, a smaller city that gets shit on a lot but is kind of a great place to live in a lot of ways. We like taking public transit when we travel and eating at tasty local restaurants that aren't too fancy for us or our kid. We're not afraid of colder weather. (Yes, we know it's winter in July.) From my hour or so of research, it sounds like Dunedin would be a good fit for us.

I promise we're significantly less obnoxious and hopefully a more self aware than the (deserved) perception of American tourists. We'll have to learn more about New Zealand and Dunedin, since most of what we know is from a few seasons of Taskmaster.

Cleveland was in the path of an eclipse a couple years ago, and it was awesome! It also briefly led to some congestion in the area, but nothing too bad. We'd love to come visit, but not at the expense of ruining anyone else's enjoyment of the eclipse. Do you get a lot of tourists? Are you anticipating an influx of weirdos for the eclipse? Anything we should consider before looking into this more?

Thanks in advance, and we hope to see you soon!

Wellingtonian here moving to Dunedin. I swear to god, every single person who knows I’m going to Dunedin says, “offft, hope you like the cold”.

Is it really as cold as people make out, or are people just super boring and it’s an easy quip to say like “ohh Wellington, hope you like the wind!”

I mean, it’s not like Wellingtons warm!?

I thought this is against the law? Do you think the same or is it just me?

I’m supposed to be asleep but I just can’t help but think about something that happened to me

I was at St Clair Beach with a friend, and there was an older guy walking his dog. We wanted to race but my friend kept on messing up the countdown and taking off before reaching three. So I thought I’d ask the older guy for a favor and have him do the countdown.

When we approached him I said “could you please countdown for us we wanna race and my friend keeps messing up the countdown.”

To my surprise, he replied saying “No. I don’t want anything to do with you, you fucking foreigners.”

I honestly was stunned and didn’t respond at the moment. It completely killed what was supposed to be a spontaneous lighthearted moment, and the interaction has stuck with me ever since.

I just wonder if other minorities in Dunedin have had similar experiences and whether they faced racism or xenophobia of that kind, or whether that was a geniunely uncommon occurrence.

Real estate agent recommendations please. Aware there are a few posts about it, wonder if there are updates?

Alice Munro seems to be taking the cake

Anything dodgy/to be aware of from LJ Hookers?

TLDR: pretty much as the title says!

…

Update - I’ve made an appointment with one of the excellent recommendations - thank you all for your suggestions! Will leave the post up for other dentist scaredy cats who may also find this helpful in future…

…

I’ve recently moved to Dunedin and need a couple of fillings done, one is a cracked tooth and may be quite involved.

I HATE going to the dentist and find it really traumatising, even though I am generally fine with other kinds of physical pain. I dread it and am stressed throughout the treatment - it helps to be numbed obviously to dull the sensations, but even having them put the needle in with the anaesthetic often makes me cry!

My previous dentist was very compassionate and tolerant of my difficulties, cleaned my teeth by hand rather than using the ultrasonic to make it less stressful, and was willing to pause and wait for me to calm down when it all got a bit much during treatment, etc.

Can anyone recommend a dentist like that in Dunedin, who you can usually get an appointment with within a couple of weeks (as I have left it too long already and am now in quite a bit of pain)!!

Thanks so much.

Hello I have shortish hair, I am a queer, more masculine woman, who is in need of a cut. I am scared on who to trust to do my hair! I kind of just need a trim, maybe a slight restyle. I'm just thinking more layering and a good trim. If it helps I have wavy/gentle curls when styled right. Does anyone know who I can get? Within a reasonable price range I suppose. I'm a pretty poor uni student

Hello, looking for a place for a good full body massage (nothing weird, btw). I’ve got so many knots and have tight muscles, am in pain. Price doesn’t really matter if it’s actually good, and they won’t mess it up more (I hear it can happen)

Thanks

Hi all,

Looking for some up-to-date midwife recommendations for our second. No specific preferences, just someone lovely and professional as we felt let down by our first midwife during the birth of our first.

Thanks 😊

Hi! I moved to Dunedin fairly recently from US and I’m still confused about how online gambling works here.

I used to gamble occasionally back in the US (both online and offline - just traditional slots, nothing interesting), also crypto casinos seem way more common online now and I can’t really work out whether NZ residents are actually allowed to use them.

Google gives me the usual “it depends” answer lol

Anyone here know what the actual situation is? And if people do use them, how do you tell which sites aren’t dodgy? Mainly worried about withdrawals/KYC and afraid of scam.

Not looking for referrals!

Hi there,
My lovely friend baked me this delicious loaf of focaccia bread yesterday, however, I have fallen quite ill and can’t keep any food down right now 😭 I don’t want the bread to go to waste, but I’m not sure what to do with it.
As a home-baked and perishable item, are there any places that I can donate it to? Really want my friends kindness not to go to waste, and would like to do something good with it!
Thank you :)

Edit: I’m sick cause I’ve had a crazy bender of alcohol 😭 haven’t touched it yet but I understand the concern!

I’m looking for some advice and hope someone can help.

Here in North Dunedin, there is a private green space where a few sheep are kept to keep the grass down. One of the sheep died several days ago. I was told that one of the neighbours already informed the property owner last Thursday.

Unfortunately, the sheep is still lying there and decomposing, which is attracting vermin and other pests. There are houses all around the property.

To be honest, our main concern is actually the other sheep. At the same time, nobody in the neighbourhood wants to cause any trouble. The property owners have already been informed, and no one really wants to approach them again or make a direct complaint to the council.

What would you do in this situation?

Kia ora everyone, sadly my mum was flown urgently to Dunedin hospital last night as she's had a heart attack. Since it was so urgent she's got nothing with her and I'm in Auckland. I wanted to do a warehouse click and collect or possibly someone could do a small shop for me and deliver it to her ward today? I'm happy to pay. It would be the essentials like underwear, pyjamas, face wipes, magazines. Thanks and let me know!

Thought I'd post this here instead of the NZ subreddit just because I actually live in Dunedin.

Basically I am still a uni student at Otago uni, and I've gone through Thrive and even Youthline and the councilors at Student Health, hell I even went to see the actual psychologist at the University and they'll all basically said "Yeah you seem to have depression" but I've yet to get an actual diagnosis which is what i want.

I have even gone to my GP outside of student health twice for this and they just refer me to councilors who once again just tell me the same thing with nothing official. And the psychologist just gave me some questionaires to fill out, also told me unofficially "yeah you seem to have depression" but nothing official.

Anyone got any advice about what to do to get an official diagnosis?

Like I'm just getting sick and tired of this at this point, even more so at spending money to get the same result.

I have to take someone in for a procedure next week and will likely be at the hospital all day. I'm wondering where the best place to park will be. We don't have to be there until 9am so I figure any free parking within walking distance will probably be filled up, though we can walk a bit with no issues if I know where to go.

Also, what's the deal when picking up a discharged patient (probably the next day). Is there a designated pickup zone outside the hospital?

Thanks!

Hi everyone, I need advice on how to proceed since I'm fairly new to getting an Authorized Vehicle Permit from the DCC.

So today DCC sent me an invoice for $50 because I was checking things out last month on how to get a permit. I drive part time for Uber so it was something I was looking into.

I didn't think I actually applied for the permit, I was thinking when I clicked some buttons it was still going to some next phase like confirmation.

And I realized the permit would end at the end of September. So I was thinking I would apply for the next year. Do I have to pay for this $50? I have never used the AVP car parks because I didnt get a confirmation from DCC, but now they're sending an invoice?

Thanks for any help!

Hi guys, I’m moving to Australia next year and I am going to rent out my property in Waitati.

The section has parts that cannot be mowed, which is covered in weeds. (Some big clumps of grass etc.)
I want to make this area low maintenance.

I don’t have hundreds of dollars to pay someone but my friend has a weed sprayer thing

Can anyone tell me what I should do? Should I just spray those weeds then dig them out then cover with weed mat and bark?

If I can’t do the whole job myself, I would be willing to hire a couple of students from student job search to dig up the weeds once they are dead, and put down the bark, etc

Will try to do the spraying part myself though .

I have a Weedwhacker, but there’s too many weeds. I need to get rid of them all to make it low maintenance for tenants.

Thanks !!

Edit: of course if I hire the students, I will give them a proper payment (just in case someone was doubting that part)

Random as hell, I'm looking for a beach with not many people, where I can just break sticks, throw rocks, stare at the water and have some me time I guess 😂

I can drive so can go almost anywhere around Dunedin. Any suggestions?

My husband and I are currently with Powershop but like a lot of people we are wanting to change provider because they have become horrendous.

I've been looking at ElectricKiwi but I'm not sure if it's actually cheaper? Last month we used 547kWh ($293) total. I'm 7 months pregnant and will be home 24/7 with our baby soon so off-peak hours seem like they would safe us money but I can't figure out the maths on it and it's hard to estimate.

Does anyone have any experience with ElerctricKiwi? Are they actually cheaper? Anu suggestions on a different power company maybe?

Im making some fancy cheeserolls but can only find regular sliced bread, is there any bakeries that sell it cut longways in-store or could cut it for me?

SOLVED - it was Centrefire McCarthy's on Moray Place.

Kia ora,

About twenty years ago I bought a folding Gerber knife from a hunting store near the Octagon before a tramping trip in late 2006, I think.

I now need to find the receipt in my emails for a warranty claim but cannot remember the name of the store. I remember emailing them to ask for a copy of the receipt afterwards and they sent me a photo of the handwritten one.​

It was a locally owned hunting / outdoors store, that might have also sold fishing gear. It was within walking distance of the Octagon (back when I was fitter, so maybe a 2km radius?) and I think it might have been on the harbour side of town. It wasn't a big franchise, the counter was on the left hand side as you walked in, and they hand-wrote receipts in a triplicate book.

Google Maps hasn't brought up anything familiar in the area, so I presume they've closed down, but any help with the name of the store would be great!

Read -7 this morning, I don’t think it was

We want to post a non-pedigree puppy wanted notice and were wondering where?

Our beautiful old dog was a mix of lab+whipet+border collie but she died last year.