Moeraki village, on the coast north of Dunedin, was so lovely, John started talking about retiring there. There are famous boulders on the beach about 1km from the village, but they are best at low tide and we got to the area a few hours before then so wandered around in the village, walked a pathway to the end of the little peninsula the village is on, saw some shags nesting and a couple stinky seals lolling around on the rocks, and had lunch at a place called Fleurs Place (no apostrophe) where we had the sweetest, freshest fish of our lives. From a hundred meters away the place looked like an industrial operation, maybe an old fish-packing shed, and it only had a small hand-lettered sign outside, not looking too promising, but we had read about it so were not fooled. Once we got close it revealed itself to be constructed out of reclaimed wood from old barns, big old windows from old houses, a staircase from an old hotel, big limestone blocks in the garden from the same old barn—it was eclectic and interesting, with a massive metal kelp-bed art work over the bar that camouflaged the glass storage, a big coal/wood stove in an alcove, lovely open feeling and simple country kitchen looking wooden tables and chairs. It’s only been open for about 4 years. Fleur is kind of a character, and I got the feeling she is always there. She sat at a little table covered with papers and seemed to be doing the accounts in longhand, getting up every once in a while to greet someone. It was the most interesting restaurant we’ve been in, in terms of “personality”. John had already been talking about retiring to Moeraki, and this place made it seem even more attractive. The town has a great northern exposure and view across a bay to low mountains on the east coast.
And those boulders! The most amazing boulders, concretions that formed in mudstone and have been revealed as the cliffs in which they are embedded have eroded. The boulders then roll onto the beach. Perfectly round and some 2 meters in diameter, with pentagonal fissures on their surfaces. Open them up and they are hollow and they are composed of cells in geometric shapes all coated with translucent silicates. Like giant rock pomegranates! I’ll put up some photos, they are absolutely remarkable, but I won’t put them up until we have a stable connection that’s pretty fast, not sure when that will be, could be when we get home! It was freezing on the beach so we didn’t stay long, but if we retired there I could spend days just gazing at them. If I had enough layers on.
We stayed the night with an old friend of our friend Grahame Lister in Timaru. Red McKelvie and Elaine Barnwell. Had a lovely stay, talked all hours about music and tried to convince Red to make a trip to the northern hemisphere. Elaine is keen but Red will be hard to budge, it seems. Maybe Grahame can convince him—seems he remembers all too well the one freezing winter he spent in England in the late 60s—but they have better heating now, and summer is an entirely different experience! Usually.
This is how the boulders look inside, really interesting. I bet D and A could explain.
No comments:
Post a Comment