Metallic Mice for breakfast company

After checking out (but having late check-out for the car) we strolled around in Dunedin while the weather was good. We picked up some baby socks and a sun-hat for Juni, and had breakfast/lunch at Ironic café – which was as hipster as the name indicates.

Dunedin Trainstation – looking pretty Harry Potterish to me…

This guy reminded me of a painting in Oslo

After strolling around in the city centre for a few hours we picked up the car and drove out to the peninsula, more specifically to Larnach Castle and gardens. We might be able to time it just right with finishing the gardening tour while weather was good.

Symmetry above chlorine

The gardens appealed to your’s truly’s sense for symmetry and I’d guess it required a team of people to work continuously with the gardens to keep them as they were. Mona of course loved the whole garden and in hindsight this may set some unrealistic expectations of future dwellings.

Just as we finished the gardens the rain started – perfect timing for once, we headed into the actual castle and learned about the original inhabitants and the later (and on-going) restoration project. It was quite a candid and dark backstory which included revolts due to cruel treatment (which failed), spoiled children, and ended with gunshot suicide for the original owner after strong rumors of his third wife having an affair with his eldest son. Not sure what moral there is to the story but the castle had been indeed lovely restored.

We figured that since we were on the peninsula now, why not head out to the Albatross Centre at the very end since we likely won’t get back any time soon? Said and done, a curvy road with a generous dm or two of land outside the lane before sea with no rails. Half an hour later we were there, not many cars and on the door to the center a paper note saying they were closed for today. I look forward to when this type of information is handled in a way Google et al get it continuously, now we did check up in advance but the information was outdated. Am I supposed to call to a landline like an animal? Bah, at least I could get a few scenic shots but no Albatrosses for me this time.

As the rain kept on and even got worse, we started driving north until Juni woke up and ended up having fast food at, yes I’m not proud but it did happen, McDonalds. Meat should not be that cheap, and the deviousness of having a playground for children made even more sense now.

We kept driving in the pouring rain onwards to Timaru where we had a motel to extend their check-in until we got there – 22:00 is apparently very late for a check-in and we were quite tired after a long day so went to bed quickly.

We had another nice and slow breakfast, and really hesitated to leave Lake Hawea but decided we wanted to head for Dunedin in the south by the coast so off we went.

Marshmallow – meet chocolate

On the way to Dunedin we stopped in Roxburgh for a fika with visiting a gallery and allowing Juni to crawl around for some time. Roxburgh was a quaint little town, free bathrooms with almost Japanese level of automation – I for one welcome our AI overlords by the way.

Art opposite public toilets. Cybermen goes American Gothic?

We kept driving through small populated areas which seemed like a mix of previous gold-rush cities and hipsters coming back and finally reached Dunedin, which is Scottish Gaelic for Edinburg. We checked in at Wains Hotel which was centrally located, and as usual more posh entry than actual rooms. After dumping our gear we headed off for dinner and took advice from Tripadvisor as usual, Etrusco at the Savoy was nearby and highly-ranked so Italian it was.

This restaurant is something I really can recommend, great food, good selection of wines and a good and friendly service. We timed Juni somewhat unfortunate so she wanted to play rather than chill in her stroller as we ate to our dismay, this is when the owner Megan introduced herself and asked if she could walk around with Juni while we ate. Seemed like a win-win-wine for us.

The struggle is real

As Juni settled down and we (!) had our desserts it struck me that enduring life’s hardships is easier with a good cognac.

Det blåser hårt, det blåser kallt …

We enjoyed our stay very much and wanted to chill a bit more so after breakfast we split up so parents headed off to Cromwell while we moved to another suite and then drove off to Wanaka for a shorter day-trip.

Wanaka Tree

It was quite windy, so we took the advice from one at the hotel and took a shorter trek starting in the city near the shore towards Rippon Wine estate. A few photos and little less than an hour later we were up on the hills at Rippon Winery and enjoyed a quick wine-tasting.

Decent job drinking wine with tourists and this view…

Juni were a magnet for asian tourists and surprised us by waving and winking back to them – a first and nothing she had returned to us. We walked back with two bottles of wine and stopped in Wanaka city centre for some supermarket shopping and then back to apartment for chilling, long warm showers and in general enjoying vacation, I mean parental leave of course.

#nofilter view from suite

During the evening I finished Cibola Burn, which without a doubt was the best book in the Expanse series so far, next up is Nemesis Games!