More-Wacky Days

    The weather lifted as we drove timorously toward Timaru. It remained gray and cold, but the rain let up. We stopped at Moeraki to visit Fleur's Place, at Juliet's suggestion. Great suggestion! Fleur Sullivan is a renowned restauranteur who wrote an interesting autobiography with photos of her life. 

    We ate large green-lipped mussels, a local specialty, and had very good coffee. There are lots of baristas in NZ with capuccino machines, but they don't all make lip-smacking coffee. We stopped at the world famous Moeraki rocks, and ducked into the town of Oamaru just because it is Lesley's hometown and we'd heard something about Oamaru limestone (Lesley is one of the ladies we house-sat for in Wellsford).  

    We discovered a neighbourhood of gorgeous Victorian limestone buildings from the 1860's. The Steampunk HQ building appears in the photo album, although we didn't have time to go inside. We stopped into Fleur's other restaurant, the Loan & Merc, and I left my Tilley hat in the washroom, so I have to drive back for a couple of hours to pick it up! 

    The Loan & Mercantile was a grain store that became a whisky warehouse, down at the wharf and railway line. In keeping with its incarnation as a whisky distillery and warehouse, there is a small whisky-tasting room adjacent to the restaurant lobby. 

    There is a Blue Penguin colony on the beach right beside the wharf, and some of them walk all the way up across the railway tracks to nest under the elevator in Fleur's old warehouse, so there is a sign in the restaurant apologizing for the occasion presence of penguin poop! 

    My photos are here.  You'll see Moeraki Bay, the famous round Moeraki boulders, Fleur Sullivan's quirky little warehouse restaurant, her whiskey restaurant and other fascinating items.

     We're staying in Timaru at the home of Trevor Bowan and his dog Judy, who have opened their home to travellers. Trevor is a retired dairy farmer who recently did a 42 day African safari from Capetown to Nairobi in the big trucks and canvas tents. He's planning to trips to Raratonga and to Europe, next. His home is a stately, high-ceilinged 1920's house, very spacious and lovely, and Judy is the cutest Cocker Spaniel you've seen in a dog's age, so to speak, just quivering with cuddliness. Deborah is in heaven, of course. I'm going to have to check her suitcase for something soft, brown and feathery before we leave Trevor's house.       

                                                                     

Next post: doubling back to Timaru