Day 10 - Dunedin

Today we headed up the coast to Moeraki.  The weather was the worst it has been.  While there was a lot of mist yesterday – it was quite light when you were in it and we drove into and out of it quite frequently when we were driving along the Peninsula.  Today it was heavier and it didn’t lift at all – it hung around most of the day and when it did lift, it was just overcast as opposed to yesterday when it lifted the sun came out.  But it was all good.

We stopped to see the Moeraki Boulders which were amazing to look at.  We walked across the beach to them and the wind that was there was just icy cold – it certainly felt like it was coming straight from the South Pole !!!  Even with my three jackets on I was cold !!!!  The mudstone that is around that area was quite slippery and I was so sure I was going to see my butt at some point in our wander around looking at the boulders.  Luckily I didn’t.  We stopped off at the gift shop and had to strip the three jackets off because of the heating in there – that is the one problem with being in a cold place where everyone has heated shops – it is cold – hot – cold – hot and so the jackets (and gloves and scarf) are on – off – on – off the whole time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moeraki boulders at Moeraki

A good friend of ours had recommended having lunch at Fleurs Place and said that we would need to book in advance as it was so popular you couldn’t just turn up on the day.  I am so glad we went there – it is an amazing little place.  If you look at the sign on the main road and then see the outside of the place, you would never imagine how nice the food that they serve would be.  I loved the quirkiness of the place – the crockery and cutlery were all mismatched.  I loved the bone handled knives they had and the decor reminded me of Dale and Sophie from The Block !!!!!  We both had blue cod and veggies – it was the nicest piece of fish I have had in forever !!!!!!  Even Al enjoyed it and he is not normally a fish kind of guy !  Then he had banana and chocolate pudding and I had Christmas pudding – both of them were delicious as well !!!

Fleurs sign post on the Dunedin / Christchurch Road

 

Needless to say after that all I wanted to do was curl up and have a nap !!!!  I did doze a bit in the car until Al decided to stop to look in a shop called The Oddity which sold second or third or fourth hand things !!!  I bought White Fang for $1 – I can remember reading this book at a child and thought it would be good to have another read of it. (By the by – Al has been reading Jock of the Bushveld for absolutely ages and he took it on holiday with us – when I saw he had packed it I asked him how come it was taking him so long to read and he replied “I don’t think it is the same book” – I laughed because I don’t think there are too many books called Jock of the Bushveld !!!  Well after we got home and I had finished the library books on my eReader, I opened White Fang – I got about 40-45 pages in and I knew exactly what he meant – the story isn’t anything like I remembered it being.  Is there another version of White Fang out there that I read when I was at school ?  LOL)  I saw some lovely bone handled knives but at $50 for 6 they were a little out of my price range.  They had an eclectic mix of items for sale – some I thought at ridiculous prices but I suppose if he can sell them for that price he will be happy !!!!  I said to Al that my Upstairs Gran (that was how we distinguished which Gran we were talking about – we had Upstairs Gran (Dad’s Mom) and Downstairs Gran (Mom’s Mom) could have made a fortune as I remember her having bone handles knives in the kitchen (or I could have used them – except that years ago I probably didn’t appreciate how nice they were !!!)

We took another drive along the Peninsula on some different roads today – the tide was in and what a different view it was.  We also went out to St Kilda and St Clair beaches although we just looked at them from the car as it was too chilly to get out.

 

 View of Otago Peninsula from Dunedin

 

A house in Hoopers Inlet off the Otago Peninsula

Otago Peninsula



Sunset from Dunedin

 

View from Otago Peninsula

 



Got back to the motel and put a load of washing on before going to have dinner.  Got in touch with K to see if she wanted a jacket like I had bought (she didn’t) and now I am off to have a spa (thanks Al for folding all the washing while I was writing this up for today !!!!).  Tonight they are rebroadcasting the South Africa v Argentina game from 9.30 so I may watch a little of that – I only managed one half of the game last night but am quite glad I didn’t stay up given how badly we played in the first half !!