Day 26 Dunedin to Kurow

As always our mornings are becoming slower with organising our departures.  Does that mean we are finally in holiday mode?  Left our little comfy cottage that was virtually surrounded by sheep, who by the way, kept us entertained for much of our time there.  So us country folks now braved to face city driving once again.  But in reality it was so easy as we finally made it to Dunedin and of course, loved every minute of this gorgeous small city.  We could have easily whiled-away some time here, exploring and photographing this place.  But we had to make our way to our next destination as it was nearly lunchtime already. So much of our time was spent at the Dunedin Railway Station and visiting an Art Exhibition there.  The old historical buildings are just fantastic, incredible architecture to be seen everywhere. Bus loads of tourists being shown around and everyone is in and out, have quick snappies with their little cameras and off again to their next destination.

Mad Betty our trusted GPS navigator kept referring to this place as ‘Doon-a-den’  She is quite whacky at times with the pronunciations of places and roads, even though we selected the Aussie version.  We did try James the proper boring Mr. English and the Female version was no better.  Betty cannot find some of the Street names we enter, but on the whole, she has been fabulous.  I do outwit her often and just enter a township’s name before our destinations, so she points us in the right direction.  She did take us to some dead ends, but in her soft monotonous voice just tells us to do a U-turn.  Why the *&^%#* hell does she not come out with saying….oops sorry, I made a mistake here?  Then we could a laugh at least.

Headed north once more and of course beautiful landscape everywhere, with equally beautiful warm sunny day.    We followed some spectacular coastal areas, passing some beautiful country homes and finally found Fleurs at Moeraki to have our fish luncheon.  This place was so highly recommended…..But sorry to say this, we really felt it was the biggest rip off in the cost of the meal we had.  Can you believe it that a tiny potato as an extra, cut in half cost $10!  How ludicrous is that! The fish was excellent and the veg accompaniment, but how can you justify something like that?  This fishing village is in a lovely area and I think it is one of those places that are just ‘fashionable’ and frequented by the yuppies to say they had eaten at Fleurs.  The very quaint rustic charm did lend itself to some fine photography and of course I had fun with the seagulls there. The option of eating dessert was out of the question and the waitress kindly mentioned to just drive up the road to Hampden – it has a place with the very best icecream ever! Did not know where exactly this little find would be in this little township, but soon enough we found a bus with lots of young holiday makers gathered by the roadside all eating icecream.   A single serve NZ $2.50 was the largest icecream ever! Obviously this is one place that word of mouth has put on the map.  Cars galore stop, run in and all come out with this more than adequate dollop of ice cream, to only dash back in their cars and keep on heading back on their journey.  We, for one, just stayed and observed the people, thinking to ourselves, how on earth do they manage to drive without all this deliciousness dripping over their clothes and new car interiors?

Unfortunately we had missed the coastal road much of the way, which in hindsight was very regrettable.  Terry stayed mostly on the highway and as per norm, every other car must do the speed limit + !!  There are a lot of impatient drivers here.  Took little detours on country roads, which makes it much more pleasurable for us sightseers, but today we were caught up with road tarring with short hold ups. There are a lot of road works going on in the least expected places throughout NZ.  But we finally found our Farmstay – half way between Duntroon and Kurow.  Thankfully we had pre ordered our dinner here, so could relax and chat with other guests, backpackers and their grand children. Oh it was bliss to have a normal gorgeous satisfying roast dinner!  How we have missed such simple luxuries in life.