For those interested in the saga of Ellen's hand, it goes something like this: she gracefully tripped and fell onto it in a parking lot about 8 weeks ago - yes she was sober. I had to be her doctor for the day the following Monday because we were in Ranfurly, where I was the only game in town. Standard x-rays showed no fracture, so she stayed in a splint for a couple weeks. It stayed sore for the next few weeks, so finally she got it x-rayed again with a few additional views, and there it was, a fractured hook of the hamate. That's a notoriously difficult to heal injury and often requires surgery to remove the little fracture fragment. The orthopedist here recommended to have her in a cast for a few weeks to see how it goes. That's where we are now. She's never been in a cast before, and to her credit, she is keeping the whining to a minimum and hasn't needed me to help shave her armpits yet...
We're in a little town called Otautau this week. Population is around 800. It's about 3 hours drive southwest of Alexandra, in a rainier part of the country. There's not a lot going on here, just a small clinic, where I'm the only doc. There's no hospital. The scenery is pretty - green hills, distant high mountains, and lots of dairy farms. The doctor's house here is pretty sweet. Certainly the biggest place we've stayed in, although it is right next to a lumber mill so we are periodically interrupted by the rumbling of double trailered timber trucks and the humming of saws. I worked in the satellite clinic in an even smaller town, called Nightcaps (pop. 310), the other morning. I think Nightcaps wins for most awesome town name so far.
May 13th was our fourth wedding anniversary so we decided to spend last weekend at the coast. We ended up renting a small cottage on a small bay on the east coast. A small cottage like this is called a bach (pronounced batch) here is New Zealand. Bach is short for bachelor. It used to be common for single men working on the coast to have small cottages like this as their homes. The particular place we stayed was in a small town called Moeraki, about a 2 hour drive east of Alexandra. It was originally bought for 100 pounds in the late 1800's by a Scotch transplant, who was working as a fisherman. The story goes that he stayed a bachelor into his late 50's, when the man from a neighbor family died and the Scotsman married the widow, who was 43 at the time. She moved into the 2 bedroom cottage, along with her two older children. The new couple had a child of their own as well. They lived in this house until the old guy became demented and was put in a home. She sold the house for 50 pounds. Nowadays it is owned by a gentleman who works as a builder and fisherman. He lives next door and rents the place out. It overlooks a small bay, filled with bobbing fishing boats.
Moeraki is about thirty minutes drive south of Oamaru - New Zealand's Victorian Town - so we headed up there for a look around on Friday. It was a cloudy, misty day, which I suspect is the type of weather in which the gray, Victorian buildings in town are meant to be experienced. Most of the buildings in town are built from local limestone, called Oamaru stone. It is well regarded throughout New Zealand for its beauty. It seems the Victorian nature of the architecture has more to do with having been preserved, rather than there having been more buildings built in the style. Regardless, the Victorian quarter is quite beautiful. It is set beside the bay and now houses shops and a few very unique art galleries.
One particular gallery is housed in an old whiskey distillery. The distillery just lost its lease a few months back, leaving the spacious third floor, which smelled of a mix of malted barley and musty old wood, open for art display. The work on display included gorgeous landscapes, as well as unique stained glass pieces and driftwood sculptures. We ended up buying a small driftwood sculpture, which we can't wait to hang on the wall of a more permanent home.
Down the street from the distillery is the Grainstore Gallery. This place was like something out of a dream, or a Tim Burton film. The staircase leading up to the main gallery had an air of mystery, with glossy paintings of plump female faces and huge eyes staring here and there, next to whimsical depictions of circus freaks and religious idols. As we entered the main gallery, it gave the impression of a grotesque carnival. There were enormous smiling masquerade masks, even more, larger paintings of plump female faces with staring eyes, and mannequins dressed in colorful garb made of all variety of fabrics. White was the predominant color. I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the imagination on display in this former grainstorage space. We were attracted to several pieces and ended up taking home a cartoonish painting of various birds, tikis, and teakettles set against a map of New Zealand. We finally feel like we've found a great memento of our time here.
With rumbling stomachs we journeyed back to Moeraki for dinner at the famous Fleur's Place. The restaurant is set on a small jetty, sticking out into the bay. It is a perfect place for the fishing boats to pull right up and unload their daily catch, which they do.
The menu changes based on what is available - always fresh. They also source all of their fruits and vegetables locally. Fleur, who is a bit of a celebrity herself - she coauthored a book, 'Fleur's Place', with Rick Stein - circulates about the place, welcoming each table and appraising everyone of the fish available that evening.
We started with a platter of cold smoked duck, summer sausage, skewered beef, roasted beets, stuffed mushrooms, tender ribs, grilled zucchini, and fresh raw oysters. For mains, Ellen had a succulent roasted loin of venison and I had a whole tarakihi - like a snapper - in a beautiful almond butter sauce. We finished with a warm sticky date pudding and vanilla ice cream. The food was incredible. Happy to be staying across the street, we waddled on back to the bach and shared a bottle of wine to finish the evening.
Day two started with a pancake breakfast, seated by the window overlooking the overcast bay and its fishing boats. With full bellies, we went out for a walk down to the famous Moeraki Boulders. About a mile and a half down the beach sits a peculiar collection of large, spherical gray to brown boulders half buried in the sand. At high tide, most are just about completely covered with water, but a low tide, these boulders can be seen scattered about the beach. We arrived sometime in between and there was a small group of tourists having a look and taking photos of each other as they leaned against and stood upon the boulders.
If it is known exactly how these boulders were formed, they certainly don't include a clear picture in the tourist brochures or signs at the site. They're fairly vague, but maybe that's because it's very complicated. It seems that this area was once covered by ocean, and calcium deposits from the floor diffused into the sediment, collecting together in bits. These bits became concreted by pressure into a core. The core somehow attracted other minerals to form large boulders that sat within the mud of the ocean. When the seas receded, the boulders were collected within the earth, and as the sea grew again, eroding the shore through wave action, the boulders were exposed. They are between 3 and 18 feet in diameter, and very heavy. Most are fairly perfectly spherical, while others have been eroded to the point where the core is exposed and there are cracks, where dolomite and quartz have seeped in.
We sat for a while on the cool, wet sand of the beach, watching the waves crash against the boulders. With time on our side and no big plans for the rest of the day, it was nice to relax and watch the tide rise. Soon enough, all of the tourists were gone and we got to have some personal time with the boulders.
After strolling back to the cottage, we took a drive back to the main highway to stop at a couple farmstands in preparation for dinner. We bought fresh bacon from a farm, where they were raising pigs, and stopped at a huge stand, filled with fresh veggies and fruit of all colors. An older Asian immigrant couple were running the place and the man told me the cilantro - coriander here - was fresh from his garden. I picked up parsnips, carrots, cilantro, kumara (sweet potato), and a couple oranges for about NZ$5. Great deal and so satisfying to get all of our dinner ingredients from local farmers.
Late in the afternoon, I began preparing our dinner, as Ellen drank wine and supervised. We picked up a nice rose of pinot noir from Chard Farm the weekend before, and it was the perfect compliment to work in the kitchen. I made some samosas, filled with kumara and green onion for our appetizer. There were quite tasty with an apricot-mango chutney, which I did not make.
I always forget how long all the dough rolling takes.
A decent result, but they could have been a little crispier.
Our main was a goat cheese and rosemary crusted rack of lamb. It was absolutely delicious. I will be making this again. The side is a tagine of root vegetables. It was a nice and spicy complement to the cool, creaminess of the goat cheese crusted lamb, but in the end it was a lot of food.
Lucky for our stomachs, dessert took a little while to prepare. We sat and sipped on a luscious bottle of 'Robert the Bruce' red, which we had picked up a couple weeks before from the Olssen's winery in Central Otago, as our pears were poaching. Dessert was pears poached in cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla, with a side of vanilla bean ice cream, drizzled with a buttery, dark chocolate sauce.
I wished I had made more. To bed with bulging bellies again.
After a night of food sweats, we woke to resume our weekend of gluttony. We had made a loaf of brioche the night before we came out to the coast, in anticipation of a french toast breakfast.
This was our first try at brioche - we don't really bake bread much at all - but it turned out really nice. After a good overnight soak in egg, milk and things, it made a lovely french toast. Our fresh bacon was outstanding.
Not much more to tell after that. We packed up and headed back to Alexandra, where we briefly unpacked and repacked to head out to Otautau for this week. It's going well out here so far. The people in the clinic are very nice, and a friendly local woman came over from her farm to have tea with Ellen this afternoon. We may end up coming back out here before we go. Stay tuned.
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