March 11, 2011

We gave the kids the choice of what we were going to do today. We could either drive out the bumpy road with lots of curves to the end of the Otago Peninsula to see the outdoors albatross sanctuary in the rain, or we could go visit the Cadbury chocolate factory. The decision was unanimous.

After a video about the chocolate making and distribution process we were dressed up in these fancy hats:

before our guide asked us to hand over all image, video and sound recording equipment so she could lock it away safely:

I guess they were afraid we were spies from Norwegian chocolate maker Freia. No wait, Freia is part of Kraft General Foods now. I guess she thought we were spies for Kraft General Foods, then. No wait, Cadbury is part of Kraft General Foods also now. Oh, I’m sure they had some reason they thought was valid.

It was in fact interesting to see how they produced all the goodies. There were pipes running under the ceilings and they were filled with liquid chocolate! The pipes had heating elements integrated to keep the chocolate at the perfect 40 C (104 F) temperature so it would be runny, but not ruined by the heat. Thick pipes filled with liquid chocolate were going into large machines that pumped out large amounts of yummy chocolate on conveyor belts. Coooool!

Automation was taken impressively far. Boxes of chocolate filled with different kinds of chocolate pieces were rapidly filled by robot arms controlled by computers using video cameras to detect position and type of the pieces coming down the conveyor belt. Ultracool! Advanced pattern recognition, 3D robot arm placement and picking up algorithms coupled with chocolate. I was in geek chocoholic heaven.

There were plenty of samples handed out, but you did not get any treats unless you answered the test questions the guide asked us about what she had just told us. Very effective for making sure we paid attention during the tour. It works to train seals, so why not on tourists?

We were also brought into a tower where they poured one ton of liquid chocolate out of a large container at the top, only to have it splash against a container at the bottom at jet-engine noise levels. They call it a chocolate fountain. Impressive. As it poured down a large drop splashed up from the bottom and hit my hand. I instinctively put it in my mouth. Yup, great liquid milk chocolate, mmmm.

Then the guide told us the same choclate is reused every day and that they only replace it once a year, when it is fed to horses. Uhm, OK, that didn’t make me fell very well.

At the end we got the camera back and the guide took a photo of us. Say cheese:

We took a stroll thorough Dunedin

and found a café with gluten and dairy free chocolate muffins. The first muffins Helene could have in a very, very long time:

The restroom of the café contained a surprise:

Goldfish in the bathtub. What a brilliant idea!

Next stop was the Otago Museum, another fantastic, large and kid-friendly museum. The Kiwis really know how to make great museums. Once again we could study an impressive collection of Polynesian objects and read about their history. I have to admit that before arriving in NZ I was fearing that the history of the Polynesians would not be very visible in museums here, which is the case for so many indigenous people around the world. I really couldn’t have been more wrong.

There were lots of other stuff. We saw a genuine Moa egg:

and Moa skeletons:

There was a great science part for kids with different stations with experiments.

Viktor doing the thumbs up:

They even had a Theremin! This instrument was one of the very first electronic instruments, invented back in 1928. It is still in use by the eminent French artist Jean Michel Jarre. You control volume with one hand and pitch with the other by moving them in the air on each side:

Yes, even I can see it, Viktor has more promise as a stage performer than I have.

As if this was not enough this remarkable museum had a several story high indoor jungle, waterfall and butterfly room!

For some reason the butterflies loved Iseline. Maybe it was the flowers on her t-shirt? Several of them came over to her and sat on her for a while. She did not mind the smallest bit:

The next attraction was the world’s steepest street. The great thing about these Guinness things is that there are so many different categories that most places can have one of their own:

It was indeed impressively steep:

and a challenge to climb:

Even here Iseline was running. We were almost at the top when she turned around and ran 2/3 of the climb back down again. I shouted at her to come back, afraid that she would run out of steam and not come back up to us again. Unnecessary worries. She just ran all the way back up to us again:

The boys climbed more slowly and made sure they had enough fuel. It was good we had stocked up at the Cadbury factory.

A biker passed us and tried to bike all the way up without getting off his bike.

He failed on his first attempt, but rolled back down and managed to get all the way up on his second. Impressive. Here he is, Sam from the Netherlands:

The view was pretty good.

We had done three things in one day, and had covered everyhting we wanted to do in Dunedin, except the Albatross sanctuary. Not bad.

In the evening I checked the Norwegian Newspaper Aftenposten on the net. The breaking news story was that there had been a 7.9 earthquake in Japan and probably a tsunami. It had happened less than an hour before we read about it. Little did we know that the quake had actually been of magnitude 9.0 and that many many people in Japan were suffering at that very moment.

Eirik

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