With the majority of people in my dorm leaving on the bus this morning, I just woke up as their alarms went off. It felt like luxury as I lay there on the bottom bunk on my phone catching up with the goings on in the world. I soon got out of bed however to take advantage of the complimentary free breakfast of toast and jams, which was basically frozen bread! It was a nice touch, although the morning confirmed my point that yha hostels are for old people.
First stop of the day today was Cadbury world, something which I have done back in the UK but thought was worth a look round whilst I was here. It was a slightly grotty day full of drizzle though which was frustrating, which makes me doing indoor things all day a good thing. Before starting my tour of the chocolate factory there was a small self guided museum to look round which explained the history of Cadburys and even chocolate. I was able to taste a cocoa bean here which was very bitter. As well as this, highlights of the museum included this big chocolate bunny, a mountain of crunchie bars and flooring made of chocolate bar wrappers.
Before long we were called over and went through this big door where we were told to wear this hat thing to cover our hair, and where we also got our first chocolate bar, a buzz bar. Before starting the tour we watched a video about how Cadburys came to be in NZ which included the strong British influence. We then preceded to the outside section where I found out I was only person from the UK. Here we got to see these old cars and also many of the factory buildings. The most intriguing one was this purple silo which apparently had a surprise for us.
There were so many little sections of the factory to the point I couldn't remember everything, although the first section took us through the chocolate production room where we learned about the coloured pipes which contained different types of chocolate in. Today they were making chocolate buttons and walking the length of the room led us to see them being made, and then at the other end see them fall off the end of belt ready to be packaged. The next room along we saw how they package things like roses and milk trays which combined human input and this clever machine. We also got some more free chocolate here, a pinky and some jaffas.
The following room was really interesting as we got to see how Easter eggs are made. Despite currently not being in production, we still watched some videos and saw some of the equipment used in the surprisingly simple process. I even know how they get things inside the eggs now! Continuing on through the factory, getting a crispello and freddo en route, the next section took us into the silo. We had to enter in pitch black and then shout we want chocolate. This resulted in this waterfall of liquid chocolate falling in front of our eyes, an amazing sight although chocolate went everywhere!
The final part of our tour took us back downhill where we learned about the production of jaffas and pebbles which are a bit like smarties. We weren't allowed in the actual room however because it was too noisy for us! The final part of the tour enabled us to taste liquid chocolate which was really warm. This brought us to the end of the tour, which was well worth doing as they produced different things to the UK. We had the opportunity of cheap chocolate in the shop after although I resisted temptation!
As I had a little gap between my Cadburys tour and brewery tour I spent the time in between geocaching so I could look round the city. Finding 8 finds in all, I looked round parts including the train station and town centre which had lots of historical buildings in comparison to other parts of NZ. I also found one up the top of a hill which gave me some aerial views of the city. I probably could have spent longer here as it is basically a spread out city.
By 2 it was time for my brewery tour round the Speight's brewery. I wasn't sure about doing this in the first place as I have already done two in the past, although the tour was well worth it. I won't go into the production of beer again, although it what made this one unique is that much of the start focused on how NZ got beer. We then went through all the rooms where we looked at the beer making process, where we were able to taste hops, a very distinctive taste. It was interesting at the end however as we got to see the copper drums used for brewing, installed many years ago. We then looked at the newly built opened two weeks ago steel brewing drums. The reason they've build this is to maintain demand due to impacts of the Christchurch earthquake. The brewery fell down here and they're not rebuilding it, which is where Dunedin comes in.
To finish the interesting tour which was amazing in the end to see how far technology has come with things like energy recycling machines, we were able to taste the beer. The beers on offer were gold medal ale, five malt dark, summit lager, distinction, triple hop pilsener and a cider. The triple hop was by far the best, and it was made better by having an open bar where we could help ourselves! It was nice talking to the predominantly American group here as I was once again by far the youngest person.
It wasn't until about half 4 before I left the brewery where I went back to the hostel. Before relaxing I went into the library to use the free computer access, leaving at dark! From here I went geocaching which was mental as I found two large containers, one under tree cover in darkness with a 23m radius as times! Finding another 5 caches in the end which took me past more university based areas of the city, I returned to the hostel via the supermarket where I just took the lazy option of a ready meal for dinner. The evening was just spent in the hostel relaxing, and it wasn't until later in the evening when we went to bed.
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