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.