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!