Te-Anau to Dunedin

The morning starts with rain, so we head over to The Fat Duck for breakfast as they do a vegetarian breakfast.  Being the international trend-setters we are the place is soon real busy, virtually no one in there when we went in and standing room only when we left.

The first half of the drive is dull, dull, dull.  The dull boring flat straight roads, seem to go on for ages with not a single feature on them. Even the map could find anything much to say about a straight road with flat fields either side.  It's so dull, that to relieve boredom, a bird comits suicide in the front grill of our car.

One town on route is named after Croydon, how dull is that?  Most towns on route seem to be shut down, or in the final stages of complete abandonment.  We stop halfway at a town that is just quite ill, rather than the ones who are bereft of life.  The Cafe is like something out of the british sea-side in the 1950s, which hasn't been decorated since.  Still they could do a cup of tea and a sandwich - so what more do you need...certainly not the chicken and apricot pizza that was on the menu.

After the break, the roads bit more interesting and the countryside became more rolling, till we got to Dunedin which is really rather hilly.  We found our B&B quite easily,  Belmont House is a lovely colonial Victorian house that is immaculately decorated and furnished and we have it all to ourselves  With a cheerful helpful owner,  who gave us lots of tips about where to go and what to see in Dunedin.

Architecture

In the afternoon we took a walk round town, to see all the victorian architecture and then down to the railway station, which is the pride of the city.  A beautiful victorian structure with mosaics and stained glass everywhere.

The Station

Booking Office

Stained glass window

The centre of town is "The Octagon",we wandered round and came across a cinema which was showing the film "Warhorse" at 6pm.  As it was 5 to 6 we bought a ticket and went in.  Really enjoyed the film,though it was a tearjerker (according to Maria)

After that it was dinner in an Irish pub and a taxi back up the hill.