Dunedin

The world's steepest residential street climbs at roughly one-in-three, parked cars looking permanently on the verge of surrender. Dunedin is a Scottish-built university city in dark basalt and Victorian resolve — where penguins commute through the suburbs and albatrosses wheel over the harbour mouth.

Dunedin runs on a double identity. The city half: Baldwin Street's Guinness-certified gradient, the ornate railway station, Toitū's settler stories, the Octagon's student-driven pubs and breweries pouring since 1876, and Larnach Castle on the peninsula — the country's only castle, complete with three wives, a scandal and a death in Parliament. The wildlife half outranks it: the Otago Peninsula ranks with the great accessible wildlife coasts anywhere, with Taiaroa Head hosting the only mainland royal albatross breeding colony on Earth — three-metre wingspans returning to the nest — while rare yellow-eyed penguins come ashore at protected beaches, watched from hides and permitted tours that keep the endangered birds' evenings their own. The peninsula drive, taken slowly, is the city's best afternoon.