We are winding down our time here and it seems every week is a last of something. Last week was our last week in Tapanui and there's nothing like a time limit to get you moving! One thing I had to do before leaving Tapanui was get to Gore and go to the
Hokonui Moonshine Museum! It was actually a really great museum with exhibits about the origins of whiskey in Southland (way to go Scots!) and the 51 years of prohibition that followed. One thing that they don't tell you until you get there is that at before you leave the museum you get a shot of Hokonui whiskey. I was (as always, it seems) the only person there and when I finished going through the museum, the two ladies working there already had the whiskey out. My first thought was, whoa ladies did you start the party without me? Nope, but they were using it to clean permanent marker off a whiteboard....and I'm supposed to drink this? A cleaning product?! Well, I had to kind of had to try it and it was disgusting! A number of glasses of water later I still felt the whiskey burning my throat, which was a perfectly legitimate excuse for a chai and biscuit!
Since we had been going to Tapanui, we've been seeing signs for the West Otago theatrical production of the Wizard of Oz and I was pretty excited to check out this piece of community theater. It seemed pretty ambitious to me to put on this play in such a small community (population 900) but after talking to old gentleman at the hardware store (which also serves as the box office) I had moderately high expectations. The theater was bigger then expected with stadium seating and it looked almost sold out! The props were minimal, but creative (think interpretive dance of a tornado) and the singing was actually pretty good. The supportive cast was the best with a over the top campy Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow had the moves down perfectly and the Wicked Witch totally embraced her character and was actually kind of hilarious.
Tapanui was a really pretty place and we had a great view from our little flat-but only from the back. In front of our flat was the ruins of the old hospital and I don't mean the cool, spooky old building kind of ruins, I mean a giant pile of bricks.
We had really been wanting to make it to a Degustation Evening at
Speargrass Inn, and finally we did! This is our kind of night! The restaurant is in an old brick building about 20 mins outside of Alex and it is fantastic, the chef used to be the the head chef of the
Heathman of all places! They have a night once a month or so that they pair up with a local winery and have a seven course meal with a different wine paired with each course...heaven! We were there for a night of food paired with wines from
Leaning Rock Vineyard in Alexandra. The seven courses included American scallops paired with resling, the most amazing bacon apple chowder paired with guverstraminer, pork with greens and a mustard dressing paired with a muscat, herb crusted lamb paired with a young, light-bodied pinot noir, seared venison paired with an earthy reserve pinot noir, and an amazing creme brulee with citrus shortbread. We enjoyed the evening with Sean and Bev, another locums couple from Olympia-Sean has also been my GP when it came to dealing with my hand. It is their last week here and this dinner seemed like a great send off!
The winemakers were there, a husband/wife team who are trained as geologists. Each wine was introduced by the winemaker, then the chef's wife explained how they decided to create a dish to compliment each wine.
The unexpected highlight (lowlight?) of the evening was at almost the very end of the evening, when one of the party goers passed out. Fortunately there were 2 GP's, 1 anesthesiologist, and at least one nurse there to save the day and everyone was fine!
I can't believe this is the 100th post...are you guys bored yet? We only have about a month left here in New Zealand. We are in Ranfurly for the last time this week, then a week in Roxbourgh, and 2 weeks of a little time in Alex and a little time Otautau. We do have about a week to check out a little more of the south island and maybe do another
Great Walk, then what I am imagine will be an incredibly lazy and wonderful week in
Togna.
We have also lined up a place to live when we get back! It's a house in Joseph-I have to say we hadn't really thought about living in Joseph, we also thought Enterprise, but a great opportunity presented itself and we couldn't turn it down. So, we will be going back to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a ton of acres, a green house and a view to die for! We are really excited to get back home and welcome many visitors!
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