8 January 2025

I woke up a little later than usual this morning, and blogged whilst Pen continued to sleep. When she did awake, we decided to have a lazy, no commitments day. Which seems a waste when you’re in a city far from home with lots of interesting things to do, but we’ve been busy so far and we’re going to get busy again. But, today, we hardly did anything except blog and blob.

Breakfast was “homemade”. i.e. I had Hubbards’ microwave porridge and Kapiti Fig and Manuka Honey yoghurt.

Then we did a load of washing, which had two interesting results. One, I think the towel I’ve got leached blue dye. Which I wasn’t expecting as I’d washed it when I bought it. So now my T-shirt, which I was very pleased with because it was pure white, has a blue tint. And the other thing was the tissue that had been left in a pocket and stuck to the towel and everything else. So, I suppose that’s just desserts.

We blogged while we waited for the washing to go through its cycles.

I said how Pen’s suitcase had a blown tyre. We tried to fix it with duct tape but had our doubts that our repair would last to Invercargill, let alone Invercargill, Bluff, Te Anau, Queenstown, Auckland, England. She also had a waterproof jacket that had a tendency to snow bits of lining whenever she put it on, so we went op shopping.

Penguins or Wombles – you decide

The first place we found was the Red Cross second hand shop. They had some possible jackets, but they weren’t exactly what was wanted. I found what we thought was an excellent case – bright purple for visibility and all the zips worked. $25, so Pen bought it, with them letting her leave it there until we’d done a bit more shopping.

Then we checked out the Salvation Army Family Store. Here I managed to find another case that was of similar size, but only $10. Oh, well. At least $25 wasn’t a lot of money and it was a donation to the Red Cross.

Pen found a Kathmandu Jacket that was purple, $25, and fitted, and I was joking about how it matched her new suitcase as we returned to the Red Cross to collect the case. Pen planning that the first thing she was going to do was tip out all the confetti that was in it… The mind boggles.

Our next plan was to head back to the hotel to drop off the case.

For some reason, on the return journey, Pen checked the wheels. One of them was starting to split along the seam where the two plastic halves were joined together. What we didn’t want was to be going through the same wheel saga all over again, so she successfully returned it to the Red Cross – pointing out that a jacket that she’d had an eye on had had a note saying it had a hole in it, when there was nothing to say what was wrong with the case.

Then it was back to the Sallies, a good examination of the case and one other, and the purchase of a second case for $10. Tonight she’s successfully managed to transfer all her clothes from her old case to the new one, without even having to use the extender section.

Lunch at some point in the day, which has all become very confused, was at a café – I had a Breakfast brioche, which was very nice – even if a bit of the chilli bit back. Afternoon tea was at some point after the cases saga and was at Coffee Club in Meridan Mall (which looks old but is relatively new), where I had a lemon tart and fruit slushie. Pen had chocolate, but I wanted something refreshing.

After that we had a look at the most lovely railway station in New Zealand – Dunedin Railway Station. I just wished we were going to be leaving from there in a train to go somewhere like the Taieri Gorge, but none of the excursions were running today.

Adjacent to the railway station is the JA 1274 steam locomotive, and attached to the Otago Settlers Museum is the loco, Josephine. I remember her and her green paint, and I remember here being attached to the museum, but I don’t remember the museum, which I think must be a fairly new building.

We nipped over the road to the Dunedin prison, which is the site of an escape room which would bookend our stay in the Jailhouse Accommodation.

I bought us a “John Candy” pizza from the Pizza Bar and took it back to the hotel to meet up with Pen who was getting herself a drink from the supermarket. (I can’t remember what in the pizza, but it included apple sauce and chicken, and cranberries, and was very nice. The Tom Hanks had thousand island dressing.)

For Christmas, Pen gave me some Tūī Aotearoa fudge that she’d bought in Whakatane. It was lovely, but I’m so glad that we’ve finally finished it and I don’t have to cart the box around the country anymore.

After all that it was more blobbing and blogging, and I’m more or less up to date, other than that I haven’t downloaded today’s photographs. That’ll be tomorrow morning’s job.

Up to date!!!?

Steps = 15,673

Kilometres = 11