Dunedin Rua

As usual, I've left it a bit long between posts, and now my memory is failing me. I have photos, but there may be some chronological errors.

According to all my records (i.e. Flickr), I didn't take any photos on Friday 7th November. Pretty sure that's the day Rua and I picked up SoNic Smith, Jess, and their daughter Bella (god I hope I have that right)[Edit - NO, I have it wrong, her name is of course Stella].

We bought and made our spacesuits (paper overalls from the safety place with homemade stickers on them) and just generally hung out (hanged out?). Oh, and I also made Le Mon Chicken.

BAM! I guess this was the day I went and did my out-of-electorate vote too!

Saturday dawned especially bright and early (6:30 according to the picture data) because IT WAS MILLIE'S BIRTHDAY:



. . . which meant PENGUIN WAFFLES at the NEW TABLE*:



We went off to go ice-skating at the Dunedin rink, but IT WAS CLOSED. Some tears from Millie before we went through some suburbs and hills to the tenpin bowling rink/arena/building. It was only just opening, so we had the place to ourselves for a while, which was kind of strange but cool all the same. Here are some people doing bowling things:









It was all a load of fun.

We went to Robbie's in South D. I still want to call it The Robbie, but I know this is wrong. I had whitebait, which was surprisingly cheap, and completely delicious.

Rua and I were then delivered to the Radio One studio for that week's instalment of Energy Flash. This normally two-hour show was reduced to a single hour because of the Radio One Election Special.

SoNic Smith joined us towards the end of the show, and we walked up to the North Valley to someone's flat (another amazing Dunedin student flat). En route we picked up some hideous drinks.

We were crammed into a car and ferried nice and early to Sammy's for the Willy Wonky and the Southern Lit Spaceship party, at which Rua and Nic were both playing. I got no pictures of this, but there are many on the Haszari Facebook if you are able to see them.

It was a great night of spacesuits, dancing, Green Man Beer, and election coverage on a TV in the foyer.

As a side note, all the people I met that night (most of who were younger than me) were very politically aware, and almost without exception horrified that National won the election.

Rua and I got home about 5, after stumbling through the freezing Dunedin gale. Luckily our spacesuits kept us warm (also booze).

Sunday morning dawned bright and early again NO IT DIDN'T RUA AND I WERE MAX HUNGOVER. Lay on the couch for quite a while, snoozing, watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and eating pizza if I remember correctly.

That afternoon (or possibly more like evening, I dunno), we went out to Tunnel Beach. The gate was fully shut, we weren't going to miss out after travelling so far (at LEAST 10 km), so vaulted it anyway, dodging various types of animal faeces.

The track down to the beach was pretty steep, although these photos don't really show it that well:





. . . but they do illustrate the quite low temperature.

The beach is only reachable through a tunnel, dug in the early years of last century. It is a beautiful beach, with towering cliffs, squeaky blonde sand, and a rock formation similar to that at Cathedral Cove (you know, the hole in the rock deal).

Here's the tunnel, with a trepidatious Jillian:



Here is the beach, with some silly poses:


(Alex is in this photo, but is completely obscured by his showboating mother).

Here are Millie and Ella having a rest on the way back up:



We had some good sarnies there, can't remember if that was dinner or not . . .

We belatedly let off some fireworks that night:



Here are the kids - either they are running to school, or they are evilly flaunting their youth and fitness outside the old folks' home:



On the Monday, Ella and I went to the South D. shops, then the museum, then ate too much at Governors's's'. The only photo I have from this day is Ella frolicking about in the 70s dress in the non-sequitur sun and heat:



We had a great trip, A+++ WOULD TRADE AGAIN.

Our plane was an hour late leaving Dunners, because, without a word of a lie, they had to reboot it. Seriously, they shut off all power to the plane, waited three minutes, then powered up again, all to fix some unspecified piece of navigational equipment. It worked, as you can tell by how happy Ella is:



* In this post I am experimenting with SHOUTING IN CAPITALS. People think it works selling cars on TardMe/Ebay/Craigslist, so why not here?