"Here's yer hat...what's yer hurry?"

    We drove back to the Victorian Precinct of Oamaru to retrieve mon chapeau, at the Loan & Merc, "Fleur's Other Place". Since we were there anyway, and I was the cause of it, I could not fend off Deborah's suggestion that we have lunch, so we had a Ploughman's Platter, which was so sumptuous that I broke my own rule about not taking photos of my food.  It's here, along with other content mentioned in today's entry.

    We wandered around the shops and galleries on the street through that section of town, and snapped a few photos. On the way home we stopped at Otaio Bridge Alpacas, where Jacob was out in the pasture celebrating the birth of a new alpaca baby only an hour before we arrived. 

    Jacob marched over to the fence to introduce himself, and invited us inside the paddock, and then into the shed where his wife felts the wool, or cards it and weaves it. He's a kind, friendly, outgoing fellow.  He's Dutch but has lived forty years in New Zealand. He's semi-retired from the computer industry, and has been raising alpacas for seven years now.  He gave us a short but rich spiel on the raising of alpacas and the qualities of alpaca wool compared to sheep wool, which I really enjoyed hearing. 

    At St. Andrew's, a very tiny town just south of Timaru on the edge of the emerald ocean, I photographed another Masonic lodge, just for Ernie Olivo - this time a lovely rounded art deco construction with leaded glass windows.

    We arrived back at Trevor's in time to make dinner with another young couchsurfer who'd just arrived: Elena from Sonoma, California. She made a lovely rice and vegetable curry, while we brought fish and fresh hot schwartzbrot (half rye, half whole meal sourdough) right from the German baker's oven.

Next stop, Christchurch