Cavtat

About 15 km down the road from Dubrovnik is the village of Cavtat. This was the first historic settlement in the area, before Dubrovnik itself was built, dating back to the Greek city of Epidauros in the 6^th century BCE. The name is a Croatian rendition of Civitas Vetus, or “old city”. 

St Nick's Church

We took an Uber to the village, arriving late morning. After getting our bearings we walked around to St, Nicholas’ church, where what appeared to be a wedding was disgorging onto the pavement. Weaving our way amongst the churchgoers we found the Shell Museum. The what? Yes, a museum dedicated to the humble mollusc! We paid our €8 apiece, watched a short film that told us all there was to know about molluscs, and then wandered amongst the exhibits. They consist of one family’s shell collection throughout their lives, which was now being held in a church hall. They were labelled with Latin names, location, date, and remarks, but very few common names. 

We emerged from there to find the church crowd had dispersed, and attempted an ingress to the Rector’s Palace. Unsuccessfully, as there didn’t seem to be a public entrance. Maybe because today is Independence Day, when Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. We wandered along the waterfront, and as the clocks of the village where striking twelve, decided to stop for lunch – the inevitable pizza, Greek salad and beer.

After lunch we walked up the hill to the Račić Mausoleum, sculpted by Ivan Meštrović in 1922. From there we could see over the other side of the peninsula. We took a different path back down to the promenade, and decided that we’d pretty much done Cavtat, so enquired about a boat ride back to Dubrovnik. One of the operators on the waterfront had a boat leaving in 10 minutes, so we took that. It’s about a 45 minute ride back to the Old Town. We walked through, stopping at a gelateria along the way, before getting our bus back to the hotel… 

I see dead people...

...except here. They do have a reservation, though.

Leaving Cavtat

…where a surprise awaited us. Earlier in the day, I’d contacted guest services to express dissatisfaction with the cleaning, or, lack of it, our room had received the previous day. On arrival we found a complimentary plate of fruit, some chocolates, and a bottle of bubbly as an apology! Unexpected, but this is supposed to be a 5-star hotel, so I guess we were right to do so.

Tonight we’re heading out to a restaurant called Taj Mahal. Now in the UK, and indeed New Zealand, such an establishment would be an Indian restaurant. Not so here, though; it’s traditional Bosnian food, apparently. I’ve looked on their website and there’s no indication of why they chose this name. Perhaps we’ll never know?

 

Skopje

The Hotel London B&B, it turns out, is right on Macedonia Square, the central square and statue repository for the city. We breakfasted in the adjoining restaurant – a strange system whereby you collect a token from reception to get the hotel breakfast menu (which differs from the public one). Suitably refreshed (although the concept of Earl Grey tea is alien to them), we planned our first day.

We walked out the door and straight into the statuary. They’re very keen on statues and fountains, so we snapped a load of them. It may surprise you to know that Alexander the Great came from Macedonia. And don’t they let you know it! We’d landed at Alexander the Great Airport, and today, there he was, atop a column, on his horse, in Macedonia Square. Along with a load of other Macedons, ancient and modern. The weather, a bit iffy at first, warmed up considerably. We crossed the river Vardar and looked around the Archaeological Museum, which condenses 70,000 years of history down into around 20 exhibits: from the Old Stone Age up to the present day.

Man On A Horse

We grabbed a coffee and tea before looking around further (140MKD, NZD4.58).  The Old Town beckoned, but, as that is the subject of tomorrow’s guided walk, we resisted its blandishments and instead investigated a restaurant called DropStop, a little off the tourist track for lunch. I sampled the local brew, Skopsko, and had a burger. A little gentle precipitation accompanied us for the walk (about five mins), but it was over by the time we left. We wandered back to our hotel, and the clouds really opened up – thunder and lightning – so we kept under cover for the remainder of the day.

In the evening we met our Intrepid guide Danijela for the first time, and also our fellow Intrepideers. Tim and Jackie, from the UK; Sue & Prue from New Zealand; Steven and Methya from Canada; Carrie from the US (she apologised); and Maureen from Australia. A group of 10, many of whom have Intrepided before. Danijela gave us a brief rundown on what to expect, a recap of our itinerary, and then we went for dinner in the restaurant.

 

Cascades Female Factory

Today was a more relaxed day. Our first appointment was a mere six minutes’ drive away, so we took our time in the morning before driving to Cascades Female Factory.

This is not, as you might think, a factory where women are made. No, it’s just a polite world for prison. Women and girls as young as 10 were deported to Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then known, in their thousands, and nearly half of them arrived at Cascades.

Our guide, Matthew, gave us the history of the place, the reasons why it was built there (cost, unsurprisingly), and the conditions under which the women lived, which were atrocious. It was not a happy tale. He detailed the class system that operated in the prison, the gang that ran the show inside, called the “flash mob”, and the ways in which women could escape. There were two: serve your time (a minimum of 7 years if you were deported), or get married. Some of the First Class prisoners were allowed to leave the prison daily, and work for an outside employer, often as servants (except they weren’t paid…what’s the word for that?). These were known as “assignments” and were meant to rehabilitate the women and enable them to learn a “trade” – servanting. It was also an opportunity to find a husband. Once married, however, the original sentence still had to be served – the husband effectively became the gaoler.

Matthew also detailed the building of the blocks – five were built in total, and the reasons for each one. When the prison finally closed, the building were sold off, and the government tried to eradicate all evidence of their existence to remove the “convict stain”. Whilst these days having convict forebears is celebrated by Aussies, at the end of the 19^th and beginning of 20^th centuries it was still considered shameful and no-one wanted to be reminded of the past.

It wasn’t until the end of the last century that anyone started to take an interest in the history of the prisons, and raised money to buy up what was the last remains of Cascades. These are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and focus specifically  on the plight of women in the penal system. 

Well, that was cheery.

We headed round the corner to another thing that Cascade is known for – its brewery, which has been there since 1830. We had lunch at the brew pub of a platter of cheese and meats, washed down with their beer of the month, a hazy XPA.   

Our next mission was to get to the top of Mount Wellington, the peak that overlooks Hobart. We drove up to the top and got out of the car – it was absolutely perishing! Temperatures at the top are typically 10°C lower than in the city, and there was also a freezing wind adding to the chill factor. We looked around, admired the view, read the information plaques, then hurried back down to warmer climes below.

Back at sea level, we took a brief shimmy around the Maritime Museum, which has stories and models of ships and other nautical paraphernalia which are relevant to Hobart, including a model of the SS Lake Illawarra, which crashed into the Tasman Bridge over the Derwent River that bisects the city, bringing down a section and cutting the city in half. All very interesting.

We decided to go for Greek for dinner, heading up Murray Street to Urban Greek, where we had their signature banquet with all the favourites, all very tasty.

 

On our way…

Slowly but surely.

Many moons ago, we planned and organised a trip to Italy. And by “we”, I mean we commissioned Kiwi company Operatunity to organise it for us. Fortunately, they do this sort of thing all the time. Well, once a year, anyway.

Flights were booked and we were sent itineraries for our trip. We’d discussed with them about getting from Wellington to Auckland and the timescales required to ensure that we didn’t miss our flight. We going with Emirates, via Dubai, and landing in Rome. The return trip will start in Milan.

We left them to organise flights from Wellington, having expressed a preference for timings which suited us but still gave us plenty of time in case of unforeseen circumstances. On Monday, our house-sitter arrived at 12:30, drove us to the airport, and we waved him goodbye. Our flight to Auckland was slightly delayed, but the pilot made up most of the time and we landed a tad before 3:00. So far, so good.

The check-in for the Emirates flight didn’t open until 4:30, so we sat in the café drinking beverages until the time arrived, then joined the check-in queue. The mercifully short check-in queue, as it transpired, as when we handed over our passports the Emirates staffer asked to check our booking reference, and on doing so, found out that we were in fact booked onto…tomorrow’s flight!

Well, that’s a bugger. We hastily backpedalled, investigated the prices of the two on-site hotels, and checked into the slightly cheaper one, the Novotel. Then we checked our travel documents and found out that the information had been cunningly concealed in writing all along! Why Operatunity decided to book us a flight a full 30 hours before our departure remains a mystery. We stayed overnight and sent them an email in the morning to find out what the hell had happened.

Meanwhile, we had a day in Auckland at our disposal. A quick Whatsapp with The Big Foody guides availed me a recommendation for lunch – Gochu, a Korean establishment which features on one of their Auckland tours (I do some of the Wellington tours). We took the airport bus into town (through the new tunnel, which cuts the journey time down to less than half the previous), and headed to the War Memorial Museum. They're currently hosting an exhibition of Wildlife Photographer of the Year, a show we had often seen in London – it’s exhibited at the Natural History Museum every year, before going on tour. We were accompanied by a bunch of young children who were being somewhat raucous, but the museum attendant shushed them and their mums (one of whom cheekily asked “Do you mind if they’re loud?” “Er, yes” came the reply). Fortunately, they soon tired of the photos and we were able to enjoy them in relative peace.

Whilst consuming a beverage at the museum café, we had correspondence and a chat with Operatunity, and they agreed to refund our unexpected hotel cost.

We took the bus back into town and located Gochu (handily, on Queen Street), and surveyed the menu. They do an express lunch special, which includes the charred chicken with comté  sauce which had been recommended, so really needed to look no further. I also sampled a 144 Islands vermouth on Tor’s recommendation, and found that it packs quite a punch! I may need to investigate further on our return to Wellington.

We picked up the Skydrive bus back to the airport and were recognised by the driver who’d brought us in in the morning. A quick stop at the hotel to pick up our luggage, and we returned for a replay of the check-in process, this time with the desired results! So now we’re waiting for boarding for the first leg of our trip to Dubai, and then onwards to The Eternal City.

 

Salzburg

The weather has finally broken here in Mitteleuropa, and today the maximum reached a mere 27°C. Last night our programme director, Krzysztof, gave us some bad news…the water level of the Danube has fallen to very low levels, and this is going to prevent us from docking at our final port of call, Regensburg; in fact, we were lucky to get a berth at Passau. Alternative plans have been put in place, though. Once again we cruised all night, eventually docking around 8:30am, in time for our departure at 9:15. We have arrived in the small village of Engelhartszell. 

The usual procedure applied, and we were again enjoined to bring our passports as, having just arrived in Germany, we would be leaving it to go back to Austria. The bus journey took us over two hours, on a picturesque route with quaint little villages everywhere. We arrived and immediately set off on the walking tour. Our guide, Julia, told us all about the history of Salzburg (salt city), and how salt made the city rich. She told us there were four things we should experience whilst in the city: salt, beer, Mozart balls, and pumpkin oil. Well, I had some beer at lunchtime. We managed to take in pretty much all the sights of the Old Town on our tour, including the cathedral, views of the castle (we didn’t go up) and the nunnery made famous by The Sound Of Music. 

Residenzbrunnen fountain - made in the Italian style, by Italians

Shopping street

The castle

The nunnery

Mozart, of course, is a major draw to the city and we went past the house where he was born and lived, which is now a museum. The main square is called Mozartplatz. What it was called before he arrived we weren’t told. It’s on the main shopping street, which in olden times conveyed the contents of the shop with symbols, as people couldn’t read – an umbrella for the umbrella shop, scissors and people in clothes for a tailor’s, etc. The modern shops which are now on the street pay Unesco a large amount of money to put their logo inside these old signs (the old city is a World Heritage site), and the shops must still reflect what the sign says – the tailor’s sign is now a Zara, for example (the umbrella shop is still the original umbrella shop, still selling handmade umbrellas). The exception to this rule is McDonald’s, which paid an even larger amount of money to put an M in the sign for a brewery, as fast food shops didn’t really exist back then. 

Mozart house - back. The ground floor is a Spar, for historical reasons, apparently

Mozart house - front

We were pretty well knackered by lunchtime, which was around half past one. Although the temperature had dropped 10°C from the previous day, it was very humid. We trooped upstairs to a grand ballroom for our rubber chicken, and were entertained by a quartet dressed in traditional costume, who sang the main songs from The Sound Of Music whilst we dined.

After lunch we had just over an hour of free time, so we took a quick gander inside the church of St Peter before making our way back to the Mozart House, where we spent the rest of the afternoon, seeing the violin he played as a child, and also a spinet (a type of early piano) they had owned. The house tells the story of the family and employers of the Mozarts (dad was famous for writing the definitive “how to play a violin” book) and how they spent their lives. Apparently Wolfie himself spent around ⅓ of his life in coaches, going from place to place. 

Inside St Peter's

Statue of Mozart in Mozartplatz

His violin

We arrived back in Mozartplatz with ten minutes to spare – enough time to get a t-shirt from a souvenir shop. There were no I ♥ MOZART t-shirts available, which I thought was a trick missed – it even rhymes!

The trip back was uneventful, following the same route. We returned just in time to hear the briefing, which included important information on how and when to get breakfast and disembark on Saturday. The ship needs to be cleared by 8:00am so we won’t be shilly-shallying, nor indeed lollygagging, over breakfast. Departure times and luggage tags are colour-coded depending on which airport or onward destination you’re going to – ours is one of the latest, at 7:45am (some have to leave at 1:00am!), for our journey to Nuremburg.

In the evening, the chef had prepared a traditional Austrian dinner. Yeah, it wasn’t brilliant. The Austrians are known for music, alps, and picturesqueness, not for their cuisine. Very meat-heavy, and the only vegetable in evidence was cabbage. They managed a decent pudding, though. 

Esterhazy cake and sachertorte

Paintvine

Paintvine is an activity company that provides people with an outlet for their creativity. And wine. Wine is an important part of it. They organise events where you drink wine , then paint a picture. Our evening was organised through the Friends of Te Papa, and took place inside the museum, after hours.

We started off with a glass of wine and some nibbles, and then learned about the picture that we were going to paint, from curator Rebecca Rice. This is one of many colour paintings done by John Gerrard Keulemans for Buller’s Birds of New Zealand – the first definitive book of New Zealand’s birds, published in the early 1870s. The first edition of the original books were produced to order – you had to pay in advance, as they were all hand-painted over lithograph prints. The bird selected for us is the kākāpō, New Zealand’s rare, flightless parrot.

Before beginning, Debbie Anderson (the artist in charge) gave us some helpful tips about how to draw, what colours to use, how to mix colours (we were using watercolours, but other events use different media), and generally make sure we knew what we were doing. No experience is necessary, and all the materials are provided for you. Importantly, they also clear up after you! We donned aprons and set about recreating Keulemans’ masterpiece.

 First, outline of the bird. We used a grid system to make sure we were getting the proportions right. 

Second, complete the details: 

Finally, apply paint.

 

This is my effort...

...and Nicola's interpretation

I know, I know. Indistinguishable from the original!

We took the paintings home and are now considering framing options.

 

 

More Gisborne

The next day we took ourselves off to Toihoukura, School of Māori Art and Design, which is just up the road. We arrived by 10:00 and had a look at the art in the gallery – the second year students’ end-of-year exhibition – before taking a seat and having a talk given by the principal lecturer, Derek Lardelli. He explained the principles of the school, why it is important, and how It is attracting people from all around New Zealand to study and practice modern Māori art. Some of it is using traditional methods and materials, but there is also a lot pieces using more modern techniques and ideas, including digital technology. Some of the students were also present so were able to talk to us about their particular artworks and inspiration. We bought a piece that was a combination of traditional and modern.

Afterwards, we had lunch in a café in Gisborne before walking to our next point of interest, the Tairāwhiti Museum. There we explored the exhibitions and were led on a guided tour, which included the next-door ‘C’Company Memorial House. This is a memorial to the members of ‘C’ Company of the ANZAC, the Māori Battalion, in two world wars, as well as continued service in Malaya, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. This section of the tour was delivered by a former officer who was able to bring to life the stories of the Māori in Gallipoli and also in WW2, particularly the exploits of Haane Manahi. We then switched guides and went with one of the curators of the museum, who gave us some insights into the current collection and efforts to repatriate taonga Māori currently held by overseas museums, particularly in the UK and Germany; she also took us underground to the archives to show us some artworks and other objects not currently on display.

Our next port of call was a visit to a Jack Richards’ house, gallery and garden in Okitu. The gardens are extensive and we explored them for about an hour before returning to the house and admiring the artwork on display. We’d already seen some of it at Tairāwhiti Museum where it is on loan at the moment.

Our return journey included a visit to the lookout up the top of Titirangi Hill, where Captain Cook first came ashore in New Zealand. We took pictures of Young Nick’s Head, the headland opposite named after the Endeavour’s surgeon’s loblolly boy, Nick Young…who was young (12) at the time. He was in the crow’s nest and first to sight land which turned out to be New Zealand.

In the evening we went for dinner at the Marina Restaurant, on the banks of the Waimatā river. After starting with shared platters of Gisborne produce (meats, avocados, asparagus etc.) there were two options for main - beef fillet or snapper, not dissimilar to last night’s. As we were a large group of 40+, they’d come up with a novel arrangement to serve it: alternating meat and fish, and you had to negotiate with your partner or neighbour about who got what! The same applied to the dessert – a kiwifruit & coconut concoction or chocolate panna cotta. A bit odd. Nevertheless, it was all quite well-cooked and tasty.

Sydney

 Our first day in Sydney, and the weather forecast was for rain. Undaunted, we set out under cloudy skies, in search of breakfast…and found it fairly quickly down the road at a café on Clarence St. Duly sated, we set out to explore the indoor options for the day.

We started at the Australian National Maritime Museum, which was showing a film made by James Cameron about his voyage to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, Exploring The Deep. We had a quick mosey about the museum first as the next showing wasn’t for half an hour. After that, it started to rain, so we ran out to The Endeavour. This is a replica of the ship sailed by Captain Cook in the 18^th century, built by Alan Bond. The ship regularly sails with crews who pay for the privilege. But it was in port at the moment, so we joined a guided tour of the vessel, where various guides gave us information, mostly about his Australian adventures, and also the conditions for the crew and officers on board.

Ahoy, matey!

We’d spent quite a bit of time on board, and it was still raining, so we crossed the Darling Harbour bridge to get some lunch at The Port, snaffling their lunch burger special. We then walked up the harbour to visit the Sydney Aquarium. I’ve been there before, but they’ve now opened up the penguin enclosure more so you can see them properly, taking a short boat ride to their enclosure. They also have fish, and sharks in a tank that you can walk under and through.

In the evening, we went for dinner at a Greek restaurant that we’d located nearby, Medusa. They were serving Greek food in a more modern way and setting. It was pretty good, but there was a load of it. Afterwards, feeling a bit knackered, we headed back to our hotel for an early night.

Julia Caesar

The Pop-up Globe is open for business in Auckland again this year, and we decided to visit and make a long weekend of it. We’d originally planned to see The Comedy Of Errors, but there were only three shows, all mid-week. We revised our plans in consultation with Nicola’s hectic chorus diary, and decided on Julius Caesar on a Saturday matinee showing.

We flew up on Friday and spent the day in Auckland, taking a walk around the preparations for the Volvo Round The World yacht race, which was due to have a stop in Auckland starting that weekend. However, due to no wind last week, they were stuck at sea, and, at time of writing, had still not arrived. They are now expected on Wednesday 28^th.

In the evening we went out to a restaurant called One Tree Grill near Cornwall Park, which contains One Tree Hill. I see what you did there. They have a wine cellar with a glass ceiling, which forms the floor of the bar area of the restaurant, so you walk over it and look down as you enter the place. They did good modern food to the required standard, although I was a little confused at the end when they asked if we’d like to tip our waiter, as we seemed to have been served by the entire staff of the restaurant throughout the meal…so which was “our” waiter?

The following morning we breakfasted at Imperial Lane café, a bit of a favourite of ours when we visit Auckland. We had a bit of time before heading out to Ellerslie race course, so we took in the Maritime Museum for an hour or so. Luckily we’d left plenty of time to get to the globe, as there was a bus replacement service for the first two stops of our journey, which turned a 10 minute trip into a half hour. We arrived and got ourselves a cheese platter and some wine for lunch – once again sponsored by Marisco wines, so I had  King’s Bastard chardonnay.

Julius Caesar is one of the most performed Shakespeare plays. How to freshen it up? Why, role reversal, of course! All the males are played by women, and the two women’s roles (Porsche and Lamborghini…no, wait, Portia and Calpurnia) are played by men. They were rather overegging it by having them dressed in sackcloth and having their hands chained. The text needed to be changed quite a it too, to accommodate the reversal, although they kept “Friends, Romans, Countrymen”; nor did they feminise the names. Other than that, they stuck resolutely to the script, although some lines were missed. (notably “the ides of March have come”…why cut that?) We were seated in a royal box on the mid level, so were directly over the stage on the right. As usual, the arena was full of “groundlings”, who were, presumably, warned about the possibility of being splashed with blood, as the gore was distributed liberally during the various stabbings, spraying out into the audience.

We’d been in a bit of a quandary about our luggage, which we’d left at the apartments where we stayed on Friday night: the manager said he’d be closing the front desk at 5pm and we needed to be back before then to reclaim our bags. The play was scheduled to finish at 4:15 so we thought it might be a bit tight. We’d booked a taxi to pick us up fro the racecourse and whisk us back to the apartment. As it turned out, though, the play was all over by 3:45, and we found a taxi waiting, and got back in plenty of time. We then walked round to the ferry terminal and set out for Waiheke Island.

Midnight Oil

Durn Dun DUN! Yes, we’re off to Auckland to See Midnight Oil, as they deign to cross the ditch to two (count’ em!) venues in New Zealand. In their native Australia, they play such places as Alice Springs (pop. 27,972) and Coffs Harbour (pop. 70,000), but they can’t visit New Zealand’s capital? No, Auckland or Christchurch it is, and as the Christchurch gig was on a Monday night, we opted for Auckland.

We got a morning flight and, after checking in at our Adina apartment opposite the Spark Arena, we went to the War Memorial Museum to see the current exhibition of Wildlife Photographer of the Year, on tour from London’s Natural History museum. Pretty much all of it is now professional photographers – the captions contain phrases like “I set up the camera trap in the desired location and after 6,000 exposures over 3 months this was the best picture”. Yes, the picture is great, but is this photography? There is still some amateur photography in the Young Photography sections, and fortunately the number of “tiger splashes through river” photos seems to have diminished.

As the gig started at 7:30, we opted for an early dinner at nearby restaurant Ostro. This is in a block called Seafarer’s Buildings on Tyler Street. I had the seafood options, with seared tuna followed by hapuka (groper to you), while Nicola had beef carpaccio and mushroom gnocchi. Very good food, and the maitre d’ admired my t-shirt as well (it was this one).

A short walk took us to Spark Arena, and I grabbed a t-shirt before we bagged our seats – far end of the arena, facing the stage. The support band were from Wellington, and called The Nudge. They seem to have been around a while.

Then on came The Oils. They opened with Redneck Wonderland – setting the tone of the rest of the gig, this is a reminder that they are, primarily, a rock band, and you’re not in for a quiet night. The set list was specially modified for New Zealand, so Peter Garrett informed us in one of his between-song chats, and included Shipyards Of New Zealand (“yay! They mentioned New Zealand!”). But as any aficionado of The Oils will know, they vary the set list from gig to gig anyway – indeed, they used to have the famous “wheel of fortune”, that they would spin to select what would be played. Whilst they played songs from early and late in their career, the emphasis was on their most successful middle period, with three quarters of the material coming from four albums. They finished up their set with a powerful non-stop run-through of their most well-known songs, from Power And The Passion through Beds, Blue Sky Mine and Forgotten Years, before coming on for an encore including River Runs Red, Dreamworld and Best of Both Worlds.

We left with ears ringing and throats sore.  After two missed opportunities, I’ve finally seen Midnight Oil live!

The Evolving Universe

The Expressions Gallery in Upper Hutt is currently showing the Smithsonian Museum’s exhibition of The Evolving Universe. This is a series of astrophotographs, taken using a variety of wavelengths and technologies, and relate what is happening in our universe as part of the timeline of Earth. The time it takes for light to get to us from distant parts of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and galaxies further afield, are related to the Earth’s development and general information about astrophysics and telescope technology. It’s all fascinating stuff and the pictures are, of course, very high quality and detailed.

As it’s in Upper Hutt, I donned my wifebeater and mullet wig so that I’d fit in. If you don’t know about Upper Hutt, it’s the smallest of the four cities that make up the Wellington conurbation (along with Wellington, Porirua and Lower Hutt). I haven’t actually been to Upper Hutt town centre before, but I’d heard bad things about it. It’s not the most prepossessing of town centres, and has frankly earned the derision of most Wellingtonians, in much the same way as places like Croydon do in the UK.

After looking at the exhibition, we then had a look in another room, which had information about the Upper Hutt Blockhouse. This was built in 1860, at the height of the New Zealand Wars. For further information about the New Zealand Wars, see this. What was remarkable about this exhibition, however, was the text accompanying one of the photographs. It said that the blockhouse was built “after a series of squeamishnesses” – a sentence which had us confused. We eventually figured out that it was a spellcheck replacement for “skirmishes”. Really, someone should proofread these before pinning up huge boards with mistakes like this.

After a brief squeamish with the traffic, we headed back to Petone for some lunch. Our best-laid plan to dine at Bella Italia gang aglay when they told us there was a half hour wait for a table, so we ended up in café Chavi at the other end of Jackson Street.

Dunedin

Think I'm going south for the winter

We set off from Wellington airport for for the southern sun in Dunedin. Wellington airport have recently added to their Gollum sculpture with two giant eagles in the departure lounge:

When we arrived in Dunedin it was chilly and windy. We'd had a bit of a mishap on the car hire front, so spent the next half hour finding a new car, before setting off into the unknown of Dunedin, navigating by nothing more than a vague idea of where we were going, and street signs. Amazingly, we found our destination with very little trouble, settled ourselves in and went out for dinner at our pre-booked choice of restaurant, No. 7 Balmac.

After consulting the map provided at Reception, we decided to walk to the restaurant. Unfortunately, the map seriously foreshortened distances outside the central area, so we ended up walking for about half an hour before we reached it. When we got there, however, all was well, and we had a good dinner there before ordering a taxi to take us home.

The next morning dawned wet and miserable, as predicted by the weather forecasters. The whole of Christmas is being dominated by a low from across the Tasman, and it doesn't look like anywhere is going to enjoy good weather for the next few days. Undeterred, we nipped out for breakfast at the Everyday Gourmet, before heading into the centre of town to the i-site, and there booked ourselves onto the Taieri Gorge railway for the afternoon excursion. We then had a few hours to kill before leaving at 2:30, so we headed into the Otago Settler's Museum, which tells the history of the area. Originally a whaling and sealing town, known derogatorily as Mud-edin, it was transformed by the Central Otago gold rush of 1861, when it became New Zealand's largest city (it's now 5th largest, having recently been overtaken by Hamilton). Amongst many exhibits of New Zealand life, it included a roomful of pictures of old, dead people:

After a spot of lunch at Velvet Burger, we headed to Dunedin station to get on the train. Dunedin station is well-known (in New Zealand) for its architecture.

We boarded the Taieri Gorge train, and headed off uphill through the suburbs of Dunedin before reaching the part of the railway which is privately-owned, which goes up from Wingatui to Pukerangi; stopping along the way to allow us to take pictures of the picturesqueness of the Taieri Gorge. The railway goes over some spectacular viaducts:

Along the way we were provided with commentary about what we were seeing, and general hints and tips like "don't lean outside the viewing platforms when going through tunnels, as the walls are only a couple of inches wider than the trains".

The views on the way are more interesting than what's at the end of the line, so we took some more pictures on the way back down.

It was all very spectacular and full of geology and stuff. You can see more of this on Facebook when I get back to Wellington.

We got back at around 6:30, and then went out to Carey's Bay, to the Carey's Bay Historic Hotel for dinner. This has a reputation as being a great place for seafood, so we ordered...seafood. The view was less than spectacular, as it consisted of the container port opposite - this is strangely absent from their website. The food was good, though. We had a seafood platter, poisson cru, teriyaki gurnard and Thai red curry fish.

On the way back, the skies opened again, and there was a terrific downpour...although the sun was also shining, and a rainbow showing, whilst there was also a rumble or two of thunder. 

Tomorrow's forecast is for more rain.