Well I got up early hoping to do a scenic flight over milford sound. Alas that wasn't going to happen as the weather was bad. I didn't want to fork out a lot of money and not see anything so I set off.
I had to go back down south as I had done a typical female stupid thing and while in tau petere I had left my credit card at a service station and only realised it after I had paid for my milford sound trip. Doh! I did phone them up and they said they would look after it after they asked if I could give them the pin number and they would send some cash. No I wasn't that daft I didn't fall for that one!
After that I headed towards queens town going a different way via nightcaps, winton etc to then catch one of the main motorways. It was abeautiful journey through absolutely prietty gorges. I stopped at various places on their (6) highway including the hacker bridge bunjy to watch somene jump off.
Finally after a really prietty drive I hit queens town about 3.30. I thought this was too early so headed back down towards cromwell. I went through one of their passes to see gushign mary, a hydrolic system and radpid area through the gorge. The weather was beuatiful down this vaelly road and the amount of vinyards on either side was amazing.
Finally I get to cromwell which must be the wine a fruit picking area of central otago. For a start their is a giant fruit scultpute as the side of the road. Then I carry on past lake dunstan to alexandra. Yes you heard right the town of alexandra in the dunstan mountain ranges...so i had to go there. Guess what Alexandra is such a shit hole, there's nothing there.
Well I got photos of as many things with my name on it and drove off. Oh yes they do have a hillside clock! Next stop was clyde which I discovered was the original Dunstan town (lower dunstan) and alexandra was upper dunstan! Dunstaned out yet? There's more!
By the time I got to alexandra it was late, i took one look at the campervan park and thought nah! So I drover to clyde which has a street full of the original houses and looks like something out the wild west. There was Dunstan House, the dunstan times old newspaper which is now used as a holiday home and of course dunstan house. I phone them up saying that I am literally parked outside and get myself a double room with my own bathroom for $110. By the way its 2.72 to the pound. Its a very old fashioned house with high ceilings and a lot of wooden cladding and some authentic furniture there.
I went and had a bath in their old fashioned hot tub. Its been 4/5 months since I had a bath. OOOOOOOH lovely! Then I went down for a dinner of pumpkin soup and rabit pie with thyme and walnuts. Not convinecd about teh walnuts bu t the food was great. Only thing was I shouldn't have had the soup as full by main course.
I chatted with denise the cook, cleaner, basically she did everything while the couple were away or at home. She phoned them when it got busy and they would come in and help. She's nice, single and cat mad but must be in her 40's. After getting made redundant she changed career.
We chatted by whe was making muffins for her boss for a local baking competition. Then I took my bottle of wine to the TV room which I was going to save for the following night. Instead I drank the whole bottle while watching william and mary, black books and hardware on TV. I had a wonderfull night!
Denise came in (making me jump) to check that I was ok. She caught me at that point swigging out the bottle, classy chick I am. She wished me good night and locked up. From that point should I say I had the house to myself. Did I forget to tell you that I was the only guest staying at Duntsan House that night. I also Had the best night sleep ever.
Posted by alexd at August 8, 2004 12:34 AM