Monday 30th January 2023
We’ve got a long drive today, as we’re staying in an Airbnb about an hour outside of Te Anau (on a farm in the middle of nowhere!). We left Oamaru in the morning, and our first stop was Moeraki Boulders Beach, which we’d been told by a local was a must see sight.
As we approached Moeraki, there were two signs to car parks pointing in the opposite directions. We chose the left route, which ended up at a cafe that charged $2 per person to use their walkway down to the beach. So we turned around and drove to the other car park which is slightly further (still only a 10 minute walk to the boulders) but free to use. We walked along the beach to the boulders, and were expecting them to be much bigger. They were still quite cool looking, but we found them slightly underwhelming. Maybe we just had too high expectations after listening to the local who had really bigged them up.
We continued on the road, and after about 30 minutes driving spotted a sign to Evansdale Cheese Factory. So we decided to stop off and have a look. It’s got a small museum at the back which explains a little about the history of Evansdale as well as the cheese making process. There was a song above the museum entrance which said there’d be a charge to enter unless you made a purchase, but the very friendly guy behind the counter said it was just to deter large coaches using it as a free toilet stop and that we were welcome to look around with no obligation to buy anything. In the end, however, we liked the look of the small variety packs of 4 different cheeses so decided to buy one for our supper tonight.
From Evansdale Cheese Factory, it was another 30 minutes or so drive to Dunedin. We went straight to the Settlers museum, which is free to enter and was an excellent (and surprisingly large) museum. It mainly focuses on the history of the area, but is very interactive and has a wide range of different exhibits, including a room with various old motor vehicles, and one with historic computers and electronics.
By this time, it was early afternoon so we went for a Thai lunch at Asian Star Food. The food here was excellent, particularly the chicken satay we had as a starter. The mains of crispy pork with chilli and basil, and pad kee mao were also delicious and authentic tasting.
Tonight we’re staying at an Airbnb on a sheep farm, in the middle of nowhere. It’s about a 2.5 hr drive from Dunedin, and on the way we stopped off at supermarket in Gore to buy a few things for this evening.
The Airbnb was absolutely beautiful, and we had a little terrace overlooking the field where the hosts, Wendy and Bevan, keep a few pet sheep. Wendy called them over and we got to feed them, which was pretty cool. One of them had been hand reared as a lamb so was happy to eat from our hands.
Bevan then offered to give us a tour of the farm. It’s so huge, we had to hop into his Toyota Rav4 in order to get around the farm, which I wasn’t expecting.
In one of the first fields we got to, Bevan noticed that the water trough was empty. This meant that must be a leak somewhere. We therefore had to drive around trying to find the source of the leak, which Pete (with his sharp hearing and engineering mind) managed to do. The sheep had apparently managed to switch on a tap, which meant all the water was being diverted there and didn’t reach the troughs.
On the way back to the farmhouse, we came across a stray sheep that had somehow managed to escape its field. Bevan tried to herd it back into its field but it scarpered up the hill. So Bevan gave Pete the keys to his car, and asked him to try and herd the sheep back towards the gate (which Bevan would open). So we ended up chasing the sheep up the hill in the RAV4, hoping it would turn around and go back down so the hill (which fortunately it did!) so we could reverse back down behind it and direct it to the gate. It was certainly a very memorable experience!!
When we rented to our accommodation we cooked the dumplings we’d bought from the supermarket earlier. We then enjoyed our cheese from the Evansdale Cheese Factory, accompanied by some biscuits and a bottle of red wine.
It was a lovely relaxing end to a long day!
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 