Thursdays meanderings

Lounge room window - 7 am

Thursday bloomed peachy at 7 am with the washing machine of rolling surf from St Kilda Beach competing with birdy witterings from the back door shrubbery.
 
That's the Forbury Park raceway (trots, flower shows and greyhounds) at bottom left of the picture and the long grey shed at nine o'clock is the ice rink (skating and ice hockey). That's not fog or mist in the middle of the picture, it's sea spray. It's now 5 pm and not a cloud in sight, it's 16 degrees and sunny and that's all good.



We were in town by 9 am to buy tickets to the Port Chalmers Seafood Festival which is this coming Saturday. And by the way, it's a huge weekend coming up with farmers markets, seafood festival and three RWC matches on Saturday, followed by lunchtime Canadian oldies rugby at Pirates and four RWC matches on Sunday, one of which is the "pool B second place decider" Ireland v Italy clash at the Otago Stadium.


After a quick coffee and croque monsieur (croak moo-sure) at the brand new Mou Very coffee shop in the Octagon, we headed to the tourist bureau to meet up with our guide for a two hour city walk (check out City Walks Dunedin on facebook). We were very fortunate to be the only people booked on this tour which was led by the knowledgeable and very personable Mr Athol Parks.

Athol Parks of City Walks Dunedin

Bank of New Zealand built 1883

A variety of architectural styles were illustrated during the walk including Victorian, Flemish Gothic, art deco, sixties and seventies. There are many streets where all these styles sit harmoniously next to each other. The Victorian buildings are similar to those in the east end of Fremantle. While Freo was founded in 1829 by the English, Dunedin was established in the 1840s by the Scottish and both towns were places of considerable influence during the gold rushes that fuelled their building booms in the period 1880-1910. Both have thriving universities, both get visited by cruise ships and navies and both have great pubs and breweries. But Dunedin, like Adelaide, has a long history of inter- and intra-church rivalries. And the building of the newest church (the new Otago rugby stadium) has caused a veritable shitload of friction with the local ratepayers who have had to foot a lot of the bill for its construction.

The only bar to produce haggis tapas

So after a very pleasant and informative two and a half hour walking conversation with Athol, we parted company at the railway station and headed back up to town for lunch. We had checked out the Albar in lower Stuart Street when we made our disappointing foray to the Green Man Brewery on Tuesday night, so we decided to dive in there for lunch on the basis of an interesting looking tapas menu and a big notice in the window advertising hand-pumped beer. We ordered the patatas bravas, meatballs, chorizo in red wine and the haggis with oatmeal cakes and downed some Emersons Dunkel and a beer called Hammer from Nelson. It was all so delicious that we stayed for more Emerson and more bitter and more haggis. There's a large range of single cask and other whiskies on offer here as well as the interesting selection of local beers so we'll be back for another session at this place as soon as possible. It has personality, the owner is a great guy and the food is top class. So lunch went for quite a while and suddenly it was three thirty and time to head up the hill to work on the blog and so here we are. No rugby matches tonight, no Pirates club and some very ordinary TV on offer - so we might look for an excuse to wander into town to Albar again tonight!

A Collection of Games

Well, the away front has been quiet for a few days as we recovered from yet another intense weekend of rugby. We left you on Saturday after the All Black victory over France and anticipating snow and ice the following day.

Sunday dawned bright, clear and sunny.  We did get some snow - about five minutes of sleet at midday. Then it was down to the Pirates club for a trifecta of matches.

Fiji vs Samoa was up first and it was a surprising match.  Attendance was great - about 60,000 at Eden Park and Samoa played a very much more structured game.  Much less flamboyant hurling around of the ball and much more control.  Most of Samoas points came from penalties and they well deserved their 27 - 7 win, although it was a very different style of rugby than we are used to from them.  This was followed by Ireland's demolition of Russia (62 - 12) and then the match we had been waiting for all day: Scotland v Argentina.

The mathematics of Pool B dictated that Argentina had to win in order to have a chance at progressing to the quarter finals.  Win they did with a try and conversion in the 73rd minute of the game that put them one point ahead. It was a thoroughly enthralling match that went right down to the wire.

Monday turned into a nothing much kind of day (probably as a result of the emotional energy expended watching Argentia v Scotland the previous night) so we went for a walk around the local golf course and then headed down to Pirates for Wales vs Namibia.  This was a cricket score for Wales (81 - 7).

The Organ Pipes

On Tuesday we bought Fi some new walking shoes at Frames Footwear, had coffee at Mazagran in town and then we went for a walk up to the Organ Pipes on Mt Cargill.  This was a somewhat precipitous climb - the first twenty minutes of the walk was basically straight up.  The Organ Pipes (columnar basalt for the geologically minded readers) were a disappointment, as most have collapsed and all there was to see was a pile of what looked like basaltic kerb stones but there were great views of the Otago Peninsula.

 

Having well stretched the legs, we retreated to town and decided to sample a couple of bars we had heard about.  First we went to Tonic; quite a modern looking place with a good selection of beers but decidedly uncomfortable seating, so we thought we'd try the Green Man Brewery to watch Canada play Japan.  This turned out to be a bad idea.  The beers had strange overtones and flavours and the food was unappealing - the mushroom pizza tasted like it had had cheap cream of mushroom soup poured over it (erk).  The Canada v Japan match ended in a draw - a result that flattered Canada and was a shame for the Japanese, who were trying to break a 20 year winless streak at Rugby World Cups.

So it was back to Pirates to watch the Italy v USA game. Italy won and got their bonus point for four tries, but their kicking was less than accurate, and, on form, I doubt whether they'll get up against Ireland on Sunday.

Wednesday arrived and Mike's knees were letting him know that they had not appreciated Tuesday's trip to the Organ Pipes, so he stayed at home, while Fi went to look at rhododendrons in bloom at Glenfalloch gardens.


Later that night, we repaired to the club to watch Georgia storm home against Romania to record their second RWC win by 25 points to 9. High five Drew! And our consumption of Buccaneer and cheese rolls is setting records. We say a big thanks to Pirates, as we now know several of the regulars well and sit with them, rather than on the visitor's side of the auditorium.  Hopefully there will be some Highlanders v Western Force fixtures soon so either we can visit them or they can visit us in Perth.

Saturday - Back in the Ruck and Maul

Well, a comfortable, if less than convincing win for Australia over the USA on Friday night.  It was a shaky start and the injury toll is definitely worrying.  However, it was good to see Berrick Barnes back in action and a good performance from Nathan Sharpe.

Mike emerges with veggies

The fabulous Havoc Pig Farm stall

Saturday started off sunny and clear and we headed down to the Otago Farmers Market at the railway station for our weekly supplies.  Sunny and clear it started, but it didn't last long, as the skies clouded over and an extremely cold wind chilled all extremities.  This speeded up the shopping process signficiantly and we loaded our goodies into the car and headed home.

Romanian squad warming up

Some REAL Romanian fans

We had coffee and cake at Starfish at 2 pm, carefully avoiding the seat where the Queens grandaughter, Zara Phillips, had eaten yesterday.  Then down to Pirates at four for a quick pint of Buccaneer with multitudes of English fans and on to the Ritchies bus for the short hop down to the Park N Ride area at the stadium for the England v Romania match. The England team bus passed us at a pedestrian crossing area and not a single person on that bus waved or even smiled despite the enthusiasm of their fans on the street. It was bitterly cold and raining as we thankfully got under the stadium roof, but we both froze over the next 150 minutes as the ambient temperature hovered around two degrees with nighttime snow forecast on the hills. Apart from a streaker in the second half, the match was a fairly turgid, lopsided affair with two English players scoring hattrick tries (final score 67-3). The English fans were underwhelming, managing to raise only three tepid choruses of Swing Low during the match. We had excellent seats in the ground floor block, ten rows back from the edge of the pitch, but the scoring passages of play were always elsewhere.

 

Young and trainee pirates

In the "stadium" at Pirates

We left ten minutes before the end of the match, gratefully hopped on the bus back to Pirates and were back in time to score front row seats in the "stadium" for the massive All Blacks v France clash. The club was packed to the rafters with kids, teenagers and hordes of fans in white. Some of the English fans were only too happy to accept the hospitality of the club while quite vociferously supporting the French (poor form says Fi). The Blacks trounced the French from the start so the English didn't have much to celebrate (NZ 37 - France 17). The French were flattered by that scoreline.

Based on what we saw last night, the All Blacks are the form team to beat.  However, it will depend on how they go on the day.  They had a couple more injury worries after last night's game, with Adam Thomson, Richard Kahui and Israel Dagg leaving the field injured. 

So we went home about eleven, put our clocks forward an hour and went to bed  in the bitter cold awaiting forecast snow and hail on the morrow. There are three matches tomorrow back-to-back starting with Fiji v Samoa at 3:30 and ending with the Pool B blockbuster second place decider Scotland v Argentina at 8:30 and it will certainly be a good day for Buccaneer sales at Pirates.

Quiet Friday

Well, as predicted, last night's match between the Springboks and Namibia was a cricket score - 87-0.  Probably the first real whitewash of the tournament, but hardly unexpected.  Namibia have problems building a strong team as many of their best players go across the border to RSA.  There are probably stronger teams in either Europe, Asia or America, but the regionalised basis of the qualifying let them in as the second best African team. 

And again the issue of rest days was raised, this time by the Tongan team, who stated that a full eight days rest contributed to their victory over Japan.  Once this weekends matchfest is over, I'll look at the results so far and see what they show us about this theory.

It was a quiet day today.  Mostly chores, shopping and lazing around.  It is good to have a bit of a rest before another big weekend of rugby.  It starts with Australia vs USA tonight and I hope the Wallabies go for maximum points; they certainly need them. 

We went for a walk along the St Clair foreshore this afternoon to blow the cobwebs away.  A batch of enthusiastic (and probably northern hemisphere) individuals was taking surfing lessons as we walked past the headland from the heated St Clair Salt Water Pool to the innovatively named Second Beach.

Second Beach - Nice Columnar Basalt

There are some 11 million year old, nice columnar basalt flows on show and a nice lady with a very enthusiastic dog told us that a small natural amphitheatre used to be used for concerts here back in the 1880s.  There was, apparently, even a tram that used to ferry people from town to the amphitheatre for that purpose.  All that is left now are a few bits of reinforced concrete, a basal block wall or so and undergrowth.

We're staying in for dinner tonight - gammon steaks from the local Havoc Pig Farm - before heading down to our usual rendezvous at Pirates for the Wallabies-USA match.  Market day tomorrow and England v Romania at the Otago Stadium ay 6 pm! Followed by All Blacks v France.

Fleurs Place and Moeraki

A fiercely contested match last night between Japan and Tonga, let down in the end by some poor ball handling by the Japanese and a couple of dodgy refereeing decisions.  Tonga were too strong and their defence stood up to the Japanese most of the time.  The frustrating aspect was that, all too often, when the Japanese created an overlap in the backline, someone would force a pass or drop the ball.  The scoreline of 31 - 18 probably favoured Tonga a little, but not too much.

Anyway, today was Fleurs day.  For those who don't know, Fleurs is a fantastic restaurant in a little village called Moeraki, about an hour's drive north of Dunedin.  We had been to Fleurs (and Moeraki) last time we were in NZ and had originally intended to celebrate Fi's birthday last week there over lunch.  However, adding the Invercargill leg to the trip made that a bit of logistical nightmare, so we postponed the trip for a week.

Puketapu Hill

On the way to Moeraki, we passed through Palmerston.  On a hill called Puketapu next to the town (and visible for miles) is a monument to 19th century Otago politician Sir John McKenzie.  Once a year, the locals run up and down this hill in a race called Kelly's Canter after a policeman who did it three times a day during WWII.  What is it about New Zealanders and this desire to run up hills?

Moeraki boulders

Moeraki is best known for the Moeraki boulders.  These large, spherical concretions lie on the beach, a little like the fossilised remains of a dinosaur lunch consisting of 8 pints of Guinness and a vindaloo.  We were a little early for our booking, so we braved the grey, scudding clouds and walked up the beach to the rocks.  Having got there, we realised that

1. The wind chill factor was -3000 degrees celsius
2. The tide was in and most of the boulders were awash
3. We had better pictures from the last time we were here

so we scampered back to the car and headed into Fleurs.

Fleurs is housed in an amazing little building, right on the wharf at Moeraki.  The building is new, but mostly  constructed using timbers recycled from a farmers shed that itself was formerly a dockside warehouse.  See the website for the full story.  Inside, it is warm, relaxed, and nothing matches - everything from cutlery, chairs, and tables is all recycled from jumble sales, etc  and despite nothing matching, everything does go together.

The Kaimoana platter - half size!

This was another unbelievable seafood experience.  We started with the Kaimoana platter - a selection of smoked and marinated seafood.  The waiter looked at us a little askance when we indicated that we would have a main course afterwards and suggested that a half platter would be in order.  Unfortunately, we took his advice, because in truth, a quarter platter would have been ample.  Four kinds of smoked fish, smoked mussels, scallops, whelks, clams, marinated mussels, escabeche, a blue cod and coconut milk ceviche, and bread.  Accompanying this was a bottle of excellent Amisfield Dry Reisling, a superb wine to complement the food.

Finney checks out the scene

Already groaning at the seams, the main courses arrived - carpetbag groper for Fi and fish pie for Mike.  As we slowly nibbled our way through the fabulous array of flavours and textures, we noticed something unusual out of the window.  We were seated at a window table and had been commenting on the freshly laundered Moeraki seagulls, that looked as though they were all auditioning for washing powder commercials, they were that brillant a white.  A glance out the window towards the end of the meal and we noticed a large, black clump of seaweed was in fact moving for the shore.  This turned out not to be seaweed, but a very large seal called Finney (according to the waiter).  Finney (I don't know if his first name was Albert) hung around for about ten minutes, much to the delight of everyone in the restaurant, before waving a nonchalant flipper at his adoring public and vanishing back under the waves.

Unable to fit dessert into anything other than a carry out container, we headed downstairs to settle up the bill and head back to Dunedin.  Fi decided to buy a copy of the combined story/cookbook of Fleurs Place and the nice lady behind the counter asked if we would like Fleur to sign it for us.  On replying yes, we waited a few minutes and Fleur came round and autographed the book for us.  We then chatted away for about fifteen minutes on tourism, seafood, the Rugby World Cup, world economics, etc until the phone rang and she had to go. 

The scenic route

Back in the car and we headed off back to Dunedin via the scenic route through Seacliff and Karitane.  This is scenic, but not for the driver who is trying to keep the car from investigating the local scenery a little too closely.  The road also plays tag with the railway line, which gives a number of opportunites for launching your vehicle in the air as you cross it. 

Well it's bread and water tonight, before heading back to Pirates for South Africa vs Namibia.  Probably will be a bit of a cricket score, but you never know until the final whistle goes.

Wednesday witterings

Two days in one blogpost here, Tuesday and today. First the rugby - we went to Pirates last night (Tuesday) to watch the absorbing tussle between Italy and Russia - fast-paced open style, ball in hand, running rugby with some good refereeing and with a pint of Buccaneer costing $4 as opposed to paying $7.50 for a 250 ml can of Heineken at the official fanzone in town, why would you not set your compass for the excellent hospitality and facilities at the local club. Plus they gave us a free pie at nine oclock bless em.  Tonight's match is Tonga v Japan which should be an excellent scrap.

There has been a lot of talk of how "well" the minnows have done in this tournament, compared with earlier RWCs.  While there haven't been any 80-nil scores in the early rounds, I would have to say that they are significantly less competitive on their second and subsequent outings than on their first.  It will, hopefully, raise the issue of scheduling (mentioned before), which currently has the teams with the greatest depth of talent and the best capability for recovery (i.e. expensive training facilities) on the longest turnarounds between matches.  In addition, the lack of opportunity for Tier 2 nations to play top grade Tier 1 sides limits the amount of experience the players can get.  The good thing is that there seems to be a healthy discussion going on about it and the International Rugby Board has improved things to date by putting development dollars into the Tier 2 nations.  However, how that will fare against the perceived threat to the current Tier 1 nations in relation to their status at the top of the pecking order and against the drive for revenue is another matter.

Mike was bronchial most of Tuesday so Fi went for a drive in Enzo to Signal Hill and took a wrong turn ending up in Orokonui and at this place she can't pronounce (left).

There's a fab beach here called "Long Beach" cos it is and the countryside is very reminiscent of the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. Blueskin Bay Road which connects the Port Chalmers area with Waitati is one of the best scenic drives on the planet on a clear day.


Here's a view of the approach to Long Beach and the Purakaunui (and no, the apparent excessive curvature of the earth in the photo is not due to one too many pints of Emersons Oyster Stout):

So not much of import happened on Tuesday except that Enzo the Apache was attacked in a car park by a rooster.

Taking the long way home from Long Beach via Port Chalmers, Fi came upon the Robert Falcon Scott memorial (left).  We saw the foot trail to this on Monday, but didn't climb it because it was pouring rain.

Pulling into the attached car park,
the car was attacked by Attila  (left photo, moving fast), who was, with the benefit of hindsight, protecting his harem hidden in the grass (right). Fi thinks she may have scored a speeding ticket on the way home as a direct result of this encounter.




So Wednesday dawned fine and clear. Even after ten days in the house, it's still a shock to open the living room curtains and feel that you're up there in a airbus on its final landing approach:

That's St Kilda and St Clair beaches to the right, Dunedin city centre at 9 am and the Otago Peninsula dead ahead. Dunedin is a town of 100,000 people and 30,000 uni students (who let's face it are only similar to people), it has architecture very similar in age and style to that of Bendigo or Fremantle or Charters Towers (being a gold town in its infancy like those listed) and it still has an operating gold mine in its hinterland (Macraes Flat owned by Oceana Gold). So this town runs on mining, agriculture, education, rugby and beer. Petrol is NZD 2.15 a litre (yep), beer is NZD 4.55 a litre.

The Unshy Baldwin Street

Better hope the brakes don't fail

Must be fun stepping out when it's icy!

In order to keep out bona fides as tourists, we visited Baldwin Street. Its claim to fame is that it is the world's steepest street and is not shy about saying so.  This street is so steep that cars have to go up it in reverse!  Only kidding, but driving down must be a little like taking a jetski down a ski jump with a T-junction at the end.  Not only that, they have an annual festival in which people consider having walking, running (?), cycling (!), or  skateboarding (!!) races up and down the street as fun (rather than cruel or unusual punnishment).  Our personal view is that these races must be sponsored by the Cardiac Surgery Unit of Dunedin Hospital and the Otago Orthopaedic Surgeons Association. 

We completed the day with a visits to a few secondhand bookstores (Mike's neverending quest to insulate his house with paperbacks) and to two of Dunedin's four breweries - Emersons and McDuffs.  Yes, that's right folks, a city of 130,000 people or equivalents has FOUR BREWERIES.  If we were that serious about beer in WA, Greater Perth would have 52 breweries.  We must get off our collective posteriors and do something about this.  Not only that, McDuffs Brewery will not only sell you beer in bottles or kegs, it will also sell you beer in riggers and flagons (we know what a flagon is but we're not sure about riggers in this context.).  And the answer to the last question on the sign will be revealed later!

Signing off now, as it is time to go down to Pirates for a pint or two of Bucaneer's ale while Tonga and Japan slug it out on the big screen.

 

Google Ghosts

A rest day for all the World Cup teams (and thus for us), so we decided to do some sightseeing and general puttering.  I must say that a smartphone and Google have given us great service in discovering and locating places during our stay, but today was the day of the Google Ghosts.

With a forecast of rain later, we decided to head to Brighton (no British Conservative Party jokes please), where our friend Google had reported a cafe suitable for taking refreshment in after taking in the sights.  Enzo snarled his way through winding little roads (albeit more of a James Callaghan snarl than a Maggie Thatcher snarl).  Brighton is one of a number of small communities/villages that line the bays to the southwest of Dunedin.  When we got there, we oohed at the lovely scenery, the quaint housing, the village store and went in search of the predetermined coffee shop, only to discover - nothing!  A second search on the trusty smartphone yielded no cafe closer than 15 km.   Unable to believe this, we investigated Brighton thoroughly, but the evidence was unmistakable - there was no cafe.

On the way back to town, we stopped off to look at the Tunnel Head beach walk, but unfortunately, the walk is closed from August to November for lambing season, as it crosses private farmland.

Undeterred, we decided to head to Port Chalmers on the other side of Dunedin for lunch. The Carey's Bay hotel has a great reputation for seafood. Port Chalmers has a feel similar to Fremantle, although it is quite a bit smaller.  The buildings in the main street are all of a similar vintage (1905-ish), but imagine, if you can, a setting where the container dock and associated cranes at North Mole are actually located at the Freo railway station. The cranes dominate the townscape. Roughly 75 cruise ships dock here each year and it is a major lumber and meat export centre for NZ.

Carey's Bay - Port Chalmers

Carey's Bay Hotel

Fi's Seafood Bowl

The Carey's Bay Hotel is a lovely old stone double storey building and the food is magnificent.  I had the seafood bowl for entree (a mixture of local shellfish in a broth) and the homemade fish pie for main. Fi had a ceviche-like entree of blue cod (but in a coconut milk-based liquid rather than straight lime juice) and had the larger version of the seafood bowl for main. Everything was incredibly tasty especially the shellfish. Fi tried the McDuffs Black Diamond (from a local microbrewery) and declared it excellent.  We staggered out of the pub and took some shots of the bay. Then a quick trip up a side road took us past a trail to Scott's Memorial (we decided not to visit today, as it was, by now, pouring with rain) and upwards to an old quarry that was converted into a rhododendron garden called the Lady Thorn Dell. 

Lady Thorn Dell

Back to Dunedin and we decided to try out another coffee shop.  Again, a brief digression - this time regarding coffee in New Zealand.  The choice of flavour, at least in most of the establishments we have tried, is a much harsher and more bitter flavour than you find in Perth.  At first we thought it was a barista issue, but pretty much everywhere we tried has similar overtones, so it must be the way they like it over here.  The one exception was a coffee stall in the farmers market, run by a Frenchman and his partner.  Anyway, The Fixx was a coffee shop we hadn't tried.  It is in the University precinct and received five star reviews.  Alas, no luck.  We are still in search of a good cup of coffee.

From The Fixx, we went off to look for a bookshop listed in Google as being nearby.  This was the second of the Google Ghosts for the day.  Entering the street where it was supposed to be located, we could see nothing.  Repeating the search failed to bring up the listing for the bookshop and no amount of persuasion made it reveal itself.  A curious phenomenon.  The weather was closing in so we headed back home to blog.

Weekend Two

We had a good nights sleep so we were down at the Otago Farmers Market at the Dunedin Railway Station before eight on Saturday morning and Fi made an immediate beeline for the Lebanese lady who sells homemade goodies from her car boot including spanokopita parcels, fatayer, moggrabieh, tabbouleh and hummus for a song and it's all authentic yummy stuff.  Mike made a beeline for the coffee stall and then we both made our weekly pilgrimage around the roughly forty stalls.

They sell everything from Rua potatoes to Blue Bay cheddar to Green Man Stout to Havoc Farm gammon. Fi bought a kilo of frozen farm raspberries and a bunch of jonquils for a whiff of spring. We had crepes and coffee for breakfast and stocked up on veggie and fruit for the week, having discovered that the fresh food offering at Countdown (Woolies), NW (Coles) and PaknSave is OK for bananas and lemons but iffy for most other things. The swedes here are the size of softballs and are lethal weapons. Jayden the six year old Maori boy was belting out fifties songs with a winning, cheeky smile. This market is a magic place.



 Home, unpacked and after some spanokpita for lunch, it was time for a relax, a read and "some feet up in front of telly" time:

Mike not watching the telly

 
 The weekend rugby menu was six matches, three on Saturday and three on Sunday, one of which would be us watching England vs Georgia live at the Otago Stadium.  With a heavy schedule ahead, Fi opted out of the first match of Saturday, Argentina v Romania and Mike went off at three to watch it at Pirates, where he met up with Dave. He picked up Fi for a dinner booking at Starfish at six to watch the Fiji vs South Africa match, but Starfish had no Sky Sport so we went next door to Salt to watch it. By the end of that match, Mike well and truly had Fi's bronchio-flu bug, so we abandoned formerly enthusiastic plans to go back to Pirates to watch the Wallabies v Ireland match and headed back up the hill home to watch it on Maori TV instead. Bloody awful performance by Wallabies.  Maybe some truth in what was said by the Irish coach about the southern hemisphere teams playing each other too much. We retired to bed, shivering, feverish and despondent.


Sunday dawned startlingly beautiful with pristine blue skies, birdsong and the roar of surf from St Kilda beach

The view from the hill at 6:20 am

We lounged about in the morning, barking with coughs, feeling ragged and trying to work up energy and enthusiasm for the days match schedule. Our Lebanese lunch improved our mood and Mike set to to paint Fi's face:

Georgian Flag Mk II

but Mike declined decoration for the Georgia match, opting instead to put on his red Georgian rugby shirt sent to him by our good Georgian friend Tornike. Loaded up with flag, face paint, tissues and match tickets, we headed down the hill in Enzo The Apache, parked it behind the railway station and hoofed it up to The Octagon where Mike bought the largest packet of cold&flu tablets in town.

The Fan Zone at the Dunedin Town Hall

RWC had set up an offical fanzone inside the Dunedin Town Hall where they were showing the Wales v Samoa match on a big screen (with a bar on the ground floor), so we sat up in the balcony with loads of Samoan fans and had a great time shouting at the screen and groaning at the result (Wales 17 - Samoa 10).


Then we had a fast march to the Otago Stadium, arriving just in time for the team entrance and the anthems.

Anthems At the Match - Georgia on the left

There were about 16000 English fans and 500 Georgian fans. And the English fans were very quiet in the first half, because apart from an early try by their NZ import, the English were completely locked down by the gutsy Georgian forward pack. Despite their 41-10 loss, it was a great performance by Georgia, winning them much respect and many new fans.  There definitely needs to be a review of the scheduling of the World Cup to give a more even time gap between games and more tests between Tier 1 and Tier 2 countries.

Referee Jonathan Kaplan and half the Georgian team

The drugs worked well for Mike so we went back to Pirates for the France vs Canada game, a plate of pie gravy and chips and Fi had a pint of Buccaneer. The match once again reinforced the scheduling and test issues raised above, as the Canadians held out the French for the first half before running out of puff (France 46 - Canada 19).  Banner of the match went to "Save a beaver, eat a frog".

Then it was home for more drugs and sleep.

Back to Dunedin

Well Friday dawned even more cold and miserable.  After a quick breakfast with Marion and Russell, we left the house to discover the car covered with fine hailstones.  Fi was sans spectacles, so Mike had to drive back to Dunedin.  Two and a half hours of chasing large trucks along narrow roads through heavy showers interspersed with enough sunlit patches to cast a glistening haze over every road surface reminded me why I prefer dry climates. 

Fi with the Rescue Specs

 Finally, over the last range of hills and down into Dunedin.  First stop was a city optometrist and we were lucky enough to find one who could knock up a replacement set of glasses in three hours.  Yes THREE HOURS!  Bloody fantastic.   So we headed home for lunch, clothes washing and then raced back to collect the rescue specs.

Some judicious retuning of the TV found the Maori TV channel that shows one live match a day.  Given there was only one match, we knew which one would be shown! Fi was coughing and coughing and I wasn't feeling 100% either so we cooked dinner and watched the All Blacks annihilate Japan.

Happy Birthday Fi!

Happy Birthday Fiona!

Dawn awoke, stretched its limbs, took one look at the weather and pulled the blankets back over its head.  Some time later we got up to breakfast with the other guests, Stu from Carlisle and Ellie.  Marion served up an extensive and delicious breakfast and we all exchanged stories as we ate.  Then it was time to go and follow the trail of the missing glasses, so we headed off down the main street and dropped in at the Three Bean cafe for a coffee while we waited for Waxy O'Sheas to open. 

One coffee later, still not open, so we walked around in search of postcards and a paper.  We found them in Whitcoulls and discovered Fi's birthday surprise from the local Invercargill paper, the Southland Times:

Front Page of the Southland Times 15/9/2011

 We nipped across the road to the newspaper office and bought a digital copy of the photo (and, as always, had a fifteen minute chat with all and sundry regarding the World Cup).  After which we went round to Waxy's, open by now.  Alas, no glasses.  So we called our optometrist in Fremantle and they sent through Fi's prescription (isn't technology wonderful?).  Tomorrow we'll get some replacement glasses in Dunedin. 

So off to Riverton, a fishing village about 40 kms away recommended to us by our friends Robert and Mandy, who were over here last year.

Testing the theory as we leave for Riverton

Now, please excuse a brief digression, as we pass on some experience. Traditionally, when going somewhere, you look out of the window and if the weather is reasonable, off you go.  In the Southlands, you have to adopt the opposite strategy, as rain and shine alternate fairly quickly.  So the theory is, look out of the window, and if it is raining cats and dogs, set off immediately as it will probably be fine by the time you get to your destination. 

Riverton

It was a pleasant (if damp) drive to Riverton, and we lunched at the Beach House Cafe. Highly recommended. And the theory worked.  Fi had a lovely piece of salmon on a fresh pea risotto, while I settled for a steak with a glass of the highly recommended Scott Base pinot noir.

After stuffing ourselves to repletion, we left the cafe and drove back to Riverton main street for a bit of a wander.

Riverton Main Street

Along there we found a lovely craft shop where Mike got to exercise his inner spooky man (chained up for the last few weeks) and bought a new hat and discovered a Riverton shed to admire.

The shed is alive and well in Riverton

After that, we headed back to Invercargill and went for a drive to Oreti Beach, only to discover that it was entirely possible to drive the last four kilometres of the road at 100 kmph in a stright line and straight onto the beach and into the waves (no barriers, no gates - a situation that would have had Hamster, May and Clarkson running for the nearest performance car for a spot of moto-surfing). It was still raining when we got back to town so we headed off for a nap at the B&B and then fully recharged, we headed off to have dinner at the Speight's Ale House and watched the Cold War (Russia vs USA) play out on the best possible arena - a rugby field in New Zealand.  A close game that the USA won.


About that time, food, booze and Fi's cold caught up with us, so we headed back to the B&B for an early (relatively) night.

Invercargill

Fi the Georgian as the centre of attention

Preparing to enter the Irish pub full of Scots

Wednesday dawned fine and clear and we made an early start down the road to Invercargill and the Georgia/Scotland match at Rugby Stadium.  Last time we travelled down that way, we took the scenic route via the Caitlins, but this time it was the main highway through Gore (the stretch of road between the towns of Clinton and Gore is called the Presidential Highway).  We made town about 1 pm, checked into our B&B (Awamoa Cottage, hosts Russell and Marion) and headed down to the main Irish pub in town - Waxy O'Shea's in Dee St, the southernmost Irish pub in the world.  As the intent was to go directly from there to the match, we had kitted up and were ready for interference from the legions of kilted Scottish and pseudo-Scottish supporters

Koka (left) and Fi (not left)

Hortonshvili

Settling down with beer to watch Samoa pound Namibia into the ground, we met Derek, a Scot from Sydney, who had just spent two days walking on Stewart Island.  He is travelling around in NZ in a motor home, and we hope to catch up with him in Dunedin at the weekend.  Derek moved on after the match to catch up with some friends and  we started on our face painting in preparation for the match.   By this time, our Georgian strip (and face paint) was starting to gather comment and we got to meet Koka from Tbilisi, Sue from Colwyn Bay and the local Georgian supporters (Cartervili, McCawvili etc).  John and Sue (from Edinburgh and Sydney respectively) chatted to us for a while, and  the pub filled up with supporters (All hail Smith of the Helmet) while Canada v Tonga played itself out on screen.  As you can see, everyone who was anyone was there!

Smith of the Helmet (and attendants)

He has not left the building

We chatted for a while with John and Sue to the raucous serenade of forty well-oiled Scots who were in fine singing form (at least as far as volume went). 

Then we lost Fi's glasses and the match tickets.  A huge amount of  crawling on the floor resulted in nothing, but it turned out that someone had handed the tickets in at the bar and we were able to reclaim them.  The glasses, alas, were not found.

Gerry and the Piper outside Waxy's

At 6:30 it was time to parade through the streets of Invercargill to Rugby Park for the match.  Led by a local piper and the magnificent, sword-wielding Gerry Forde we marched the two kms to the ground with police escorts stopping the traffic for us as we crossed roads.

By the time we got to the ground, we had three pipers and about 2000 people in the parade (and about 20 Georgian supporters).



Once at Rugby Park we worked our way down to our seats and took in the spectacle.  It is a lovely ground with only one grandstand and is still very relaxed and everyone was able to get out of their seats and go and hang on the fence around the ground.

Rugby Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, with perfect timing, the rain started.  Not pounding, driving rain just steady, unvarying drizzle.  This continued for most of the game with just enough breaks to get your hopes up before starting again.  Again, the atmosphere was fantastic - everyone talking to everyone else, lots of Argentinian supporters in town for Saturday's match against Romania and plenty of shouting and cheering.  It was, however, not an exciting match and Scotland finally got away with an unconvincing victory. 

The Best Kebab Shop in the Universe

 We then made a damp weary trudge back to town in search of food and found the best Kebab shop in the Southern Hemisphere (possibly the universe).

Exhausted after such a huge evening, we walked back to Awamoa Cottage, spent fifteen minutes scouring the paint from our faces and collapsed into bed.