I am sorry to report I lost some points today, you see apparently it is my fault that Gerard and I slept in today. Poor Noeline was up at 7am and we woke up at 8.45am. We had the bread and juice so all Noel could do was write postcards while she waited for us sleepy heads to wake up. After all our touring of Timaru last night we decided to head straight to Dunedin today.
So we left Timaru about 10am and headed down the road. Throughout the trip we had the sea on our left and the snow-capped mountains on our right. At times it felt like we were travelling the Great Ocean Road with the beach coming right up to the edge of the road and winding our way around the seashore. We stopped at a beach to have a wander and take some photos, it was a very quiet beach with just a few birds and some shells. The weather has been quite kind – about 18 in Christchurch yesterday with sunshine – a lot colder today about 10 in Dunedin – but still mainly fine and pleasant. Noeline asked Gerard to take a photo with the waves behind her, I couldn’t resist yelling out “Watch out there’s a big wave behind you!” She moved pretty quick and the look on her face was priceless. So, back seat for me.
Just a word of warning to future travellers to this fine country – don’t pretend to be a possum, don’t bring your pet possum and don’t show any sympathy for possums. Everywhere we go there are wool and possum jumpers, scarves and gloves for sale: expensive they are too. I guess it must be difficult to shear a possum but the clothes are lovely. Apparently possums plague New Zealand and they are viewed as vermin. I don’t think they survive the shearing process or is it plucking? Now back to our journey.
Of course, along the way we found a cheese factory and bought more cheese, it was really nice too. We stopped at Palmerston for morning tea about 11.30 in a really nice bakery and checked out the local gift shops. Then on to Dunedin only 52kms away. We arrived here and found our Hotel – more points for me and I think my position in the front has been reinstated – the digs are great!!! We are here for two nights so we are all very happy. It’s a bit like Faulty Towers, but the people are very helpful, funny and will book all the touristy things for us. Noeline has her own room and we have kitchen facilities etc.
Lesson 2 – point Noeline in the direction of a factory tour of Cadbury chocolates and her sore knee disappears and she can move as fast as she does when she thinks she is going to cop a big wave. So we toured Cadbury and saw all the chockies being made. Of course we had to buy a bit as well.
We then checked out the local shopping centre, had a coffee and bought a couple of DVDs and CDs.
6.45pm and we realised we were running late for the brewery tour that was booked for us for 7pm. Oops! Watching videos and typing journals makes the time fly. So we scurried to the car and headed into the brewery. We made it in time and had the tour; the guide was a strange, but friendly man who thought he was very funny. He certainly knew about breweries though. Speights are actually one of the biggest breweries and part of the Lion Nathan companies; they even own Boags and make Heineken and a million other beers I can’t remember. At the end of the tour we were poured a beer and then we were allowed to pour as many for ourselves as we liked. There were about eight to try including pale ale, porter, dark ale, summit – with lemon, a butterscotch flavoured one etc.
By now it was 8.30pm and time for some dinner, so we drove around and found a café/restaurant called the Black Dog. It had plenty of people inside and the food looked good so in we went. We had stumbled across an award winning eatery and the food was great! We dined well and couldn’t possibly fit in dessert, but Noeline and I have discovered “Benoffi” pie, which is a caramel, bananas and cream pie topped with chocolate, which is delicious, so we got one slice to go and it awaits us in the fridge. Couldn’t possibly fit it in tonight. Tomorrow we are off to visit a castle in the morning and a boat cruise in the afternoon.
