9 January 2025

Firstly, Pen wants me to tell you that she may sleep longer than me in the morning, (only because I’m used to waking up for a 6.30 rising for work), but that she’s frequently still fighting and cursing Facebook because it refuses to cooperate and upload her photos after I’ve cuddled down to sleep. Except for tonight.

Whilst the Victoria Hotel is a lovely four-star hotel, it’s quite airless at night, so I put the air conditioning up to 21.5° and left it on all night, which was a lot more comfortable. And, whilst it was comfortable and I’m enjoying this trip, I’m ready for my own bed.

But we’ve still got some fun and amazing things to do.

We packed up this morning and left our bags with the hotel for the morning. We also left Pen’s old bag, telling them that it was perfectly usable if someone could fix the tyre on that wheel.

We couldn’t keep away from the Dunedin Railway Station, and carried on past to the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. As this is free entry I gave them a donation of $10. It was a very interesting museum, especially with being able to get close to Josephine, something that I don’t think we’ve ever managed to do.

The building itself is interesting too as it’s a Victorian Art Nouveau building, attached to a very Art Deco former NZ Railways building, attached to a modern purpose-build museum building. Inside, they concentrated on quality, not the quantity of items. We did notice the odd bit that didn’t work and a couple of things that needed further explanation, but otherwise it was worth it.

Following that, we had half a mint slice each and I had a ginger limoncello tea at Maggie’s Café. Then we returned to the hotel, after which I ducked back out and bought an on-special-because-it’s-close-to-its-best-before-date chicken and cranberry sandwich, which I ate there. Pen had the other half of the huge sausage roll she’d had for lunch yesterday.

As it was about an hour before our bus was due to leave at 2.15pm, we collected our bags and wheeled them around to the bus stop. And waited.

A bus for Invercargill arrived, but it was a Ritchies’ branded bus travelling for InterCity. We were going with Book A Coach. But we checked just in case. Nope, we weren’t on board. (Which we weren’t informed of in a particularly caring manner.)

So, we waited.

And waited.

And, since she was concerned that we were meant to be on the InterCity coach, Pen checked with the driver of the bus again.

We definitely were not due to ride on that.

This left me concerned that either we were at the wrong bus stop, or, as it was already 2.15, we had the wrong time.

So, as she’d been the one to book this trip, Pen rang Book A Coach. Yes, we were at the right stop and yes, we had the right time. The driver was on his way, in his minibus with orange arrows, and we were definitely at the right stop.

It turns out that Book A Coach is a door-to-door service, and he’d already picked up one lady who makes the trip regularly. I sat kind of next to her, with our gear taking up the middle seat. Pen sat behind and had the three seats all to herself. We picked up one more seat, a young teenager, and we were off.

The driver, Stuart 97, asked if I was Australian. I said that was offensive and then, of course, thought that I should have said that I’m from the North Island, not the West Island.

And I have to say that this was a much more comfortable trip than it would have been with InterCity. More leg room, better music (since my noise cancelling headphones, which were D.C.’s, don’t seem to be working) and better company. We also stopped off at Clinton for a toilet stop and I bought myself a Popsicle Fruit Stack ice block, since I knew we’d be stopping for a coffee soon and I’d been anticipating buying a slushy… Once I got my seatbelt off. It was a lapbelt with the catch in the middle and I was looking for a catch on both sides. Stuart 97 asked if maybe I actually was Australian.

This service also acts as a courier for the various medical establishments, and we stopped off at the Medlabs of Gore, Balclutha, and Invercargill.

The lady next to me was set down at the Rowena Jackson Retirement Village – I commented that it was named after an auspicious individual and then told Pen that Rowena Jackson was a world class ballet dancer who held the world record for performing 121 fouettés sur place. That’s a spin on one leg whilst flicking the other out to maintain your momentum for non-ballet people.

The young lad was dropped off next and then, after the final courier drop off our driver, Stuart 97, said he had to pick someone up from Bluff. Up till that point he hadn’t been sure whether he was taking us through or if we’d be travelling with someone else. But now that he knew that he had to go through, and, as the individual to be picked up was at Stirling Point where the world famous signpost is located, would we like to go there first and then be dropped off at our hotel?

We said, “thank you very much.”

And just as well as it turned out to be several kilometres away from where we were staying. I’d planned on asking “where the signpost is?” confident that our host would know which signpost. It was a rush though, as we didn’t want to hold anyone up. I got photos of the signpost and photos of Pen holding Kally under the signpost, and then we returned to the minibus. As the new passenger hadn’t arrived yet, we went back with Scott and got a photo of him at the signpost and I used another couples DSLR to get a photo of them with the signpost, but we didn’t actually get a photo of me with the signpost, when I realised that the new passenger had arrived.

My second question was going to be where’s the best place to get a cheese roll. (Since the only ones we’ve had were made by Cantabrians on the TranzAlpine and couldn’t possibly be as good as genuine Southland ones.) Our host told us the best cheese rolls were probably to be found in Invercargill.

So that was no good.

And then we were dropped off at the Foveaux Hotel, which looks to be an original Art Deco Hotel. We were greeted by our host, who gave us our key and a rundown of the hotel’s workings. We asked about a meal, and she gave us a long list of establishments that were no more due to owners’ illnesses, and then suggested Hayz@The Anchorage, which was a couple of blocks away, but that it could be closing any moment. So she rang them to see if we could have a meal and we left our bags in the foyer and hightailed it down there.

They were still open… Just. The closed sign went up about ten minutes after we’d arrived. But the staff were very friendly and helpful and when said that I’d prefer the half size chicken schnitzel but would be happy with a chicken salad if it was quicker, and they made the schnitzel.

Half size?!

But it was a lovely meal. The salad was light with a delicious dressing; the chips weren’t greasy and overcooked; if you like mushrooms, the mushrooms were nice (I tend to just eat them because they’re good for you); and the chicken schnitzel was perfect.

We ate as quickly as we dared, but eventually had to wave the white flag when the meals, as tasty as they were, proved too much for us to eat. We promised we’d return when we’re next in Bluff.

We returned to the hotel, discovered that our bags were already in our rooms, and offloaded everything we didn’t need. Then we went for a walk along the waterfront… For two reasons. One, to confirm where the ferry terminal is. And two: to walk off that meal.

Carving of a ship – for Bluff’s port and the fact it’s New Zealand’s earliest settled town, inside a Bluff Oyster shell

Thames could do something like this.

I got a bit worried there. I prepare which photos I’m going to post in my blog before I start posting and realised that the photos of Dunedin were interspersed with photos of Bluff. As I’m not convinced that my new camera is recording all its photos, I took this as a sign that something was definitely wrong. That was until I remembered that the Dunedin photos were taken on D.C.’s pocket-sized camera and the Bluff ones on my DSLR. It’s a fluke that their file numbers of both cameras are, at present, all in the same format and within the same range IMG_3915 to IMG_3940.

But I’m still concerned about the missing photos. Camera or card?

Steps – 12,698

Kilometres – 8.8