One last cold morning in Dunedin. Agian we stayed in bed until the temperature rose above zero. We packed up the apartment, walked down the road for some breakfast and then drove around Deb’s old suburb in Dunedin, before joining up with the motorway and heading out of town. We agreed that while we’d done lots of things in our 2 days in Dunedin, there was more to do another time.
The drive up to Alexandra usually takes a couple of hours, but we took it fairly slowly. As we went along I could see portions of ice in the irrigation channels and frost remained in the fields at 12 o’clock. We decided to stop in Lawrence for coffee, a strange little town. The coffee was served by a lady whose face looked like it had met with a windscreen. Despite our efforts to engage her, she wasn’t willing to elaborate. Nearby was a shop of knick-knacks which was run by a unique lady who had just moved back to New Zealand after 38 years in Queensland, her last stop being Mt Morgan. I wasn’t sure that even Mt Morgan could explain the knitted dresses and felt head-bands she had to sell. So, my end judgement was a strange little town, but pretty nonetheless.
From Lawrence, the drive was scenic, lots of snow topped mountains and into the craggy country many have seen through the Lord of the Rings movies. One of the things I’d said to Deb I wanted to see was a frozen dam. It wasn’t long before that was covered off, with many of the dams having an icy covering. One cutting we drove through had icicles hanging on the cliff-side, a very winter-wonderland feel. We stopped for lunch in Roxburgh which is notable for a couple of reasons.
One being the Morrocan Kumara soup (Sweet potato for the Aussies), followed by Louise Slice for me, chocolate brownie for Deb, but the second reason was the most amazing public toilets – electronic doors, electronic toilet paper dispensing, synchronised flush and hand washing as well as music to hide any unsavoury sounds.
Another half an hour of driving saw us arriving in Alexandra, which will be our base for the next ten days or so. The house we are staying comes courtesy of Deb’s Uncle Ian and Aunty Kathi and is certainly comfortable. The weather forecasts aren’t great so there may be a few blog-lite days, but the view out the front window is magnificent!
Until tomorrow
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