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.