15 December 2010

Tuesday 14th December

Matthew was up early to take shots in good weather with good light. He got a couple of gems. We packed up at Pounawea. The night before I had been for a walk around the village while the kids played in the park. I went past the christian camp that my mum had been to when she was nineteen. I feel like I am walking in footsteps as we travel this part of New Zealand. There are so many places and stories that have come down from my parents and times that I remember. They often surprise me as I see a scene I have seen before but forgot existed.
On leaving the campground having dispelled the rumour of strangeness we went back to the Catlins cafe to check the email and have a morning coffee. I spent some time trying to organise some accomodation in Dunedin with no luck and the kids went to the local library to kill some time while they waited for me.
We went to pick them up and once were inside found it hard to leave. This is a town of 300 and they have created a beautiful library and museum that would put many a big town to shame. There was amazing jewllery for sale and they kindly sent us through the museum for free. The boys really enjoyed their first museum time for the trip and Ruby really enjoyed having free reading time in the kids section. This place is a find and if you ever get a chance and are in the area make a point of going in. I was well impressed.
The interesting about this place is that it seems like there is a very small number of people covering a number of bases. I saw one woman working in the library, at the campground and then saw her again at the cafe. Now I don't know if she was working in all of those places but she was comfortable being behind the scenes in all.
On to Dunedin. Most disappointed to have missed staying at Billy Browns in Port Chalmers, it took the shine off for me to be at a pretty average Holiday Park. Any way we made the best of it after checking out the Octagon and it's cafes we settled in for the night.

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