On our way to Oamuru, our next overnight stop we stopped off to see the famous Moeraki boulders which are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the Otago coast. These were formed millions of years ago and gradually exposed by coastal erosion.
After our first trip here we saw a NZ cookbook by Bevan Smith which is very straightforward, healthy and fresh looking recipes, without too many ingredients!
We are not sure whether he is the Jamie Oliver equivalent in NZ but we did note that he has an award winning restaurant just north of Oamaru which was on our journey from Dunedin to Christchurch and we made. a reservation. Just as well we did, Friday 4th was their first day open since Christmas and New Year and it was very busy.
The place is a fairly large small holding with gardens and lots of space devoted to growing fruit and vegetables. It also has a good sized area with climbing frames for children and of course a fairly large restaurant area.
We settled down and decided to plump for the tasting menu complete with wine. We were not disappointed; it was all delicious and really fresh tasting. It was perhaps surprising to have two of the courses containing cherries (they were represented in a salad and the desert of summer fruits) but we were not complaining. Cherries are one of the best summer fruits out here, NZ grown and everywhere. The goat's curd in the salad was a new one on us but delicious and the whole salad worked beautifully. Not sure whether the curd is available in Waitrose!!
As with all these chefs he has another book out and a signed copy has been my sole retail therapy since leaving the UK.
A word about the dress code. Clearly anything goes in NZ and smart they don't do which is useful as campervan living does not make smart easy. However I was surprised by the attire of many of the (shall we say) more mature ladies. The common thread seemed to be black leggings, rather heavy shoes, a short dress and a cardigan! Since you ask the lovely lady wife was wearing her Lacroix, sweetie, accessorised with Gucci handbag and Louboutin shoes darling!!
The whole meal lasted 3 hours and after that we went to our camp site for a snooze before returning to the fray to see the yellow penguin (just one this time) and the return of the troop of little blue penguins. The blue penguins of Oamaru are famous and are protected in their home of a former quarry. They come back just before it gets dark from their fishing trips. Apparently they wait about 500 metres out until there are a reasonable number of them (known as a raft) and then they all make their way home - the point being safety in numbers).
They make their way up the rocks and into their homes in full view of the tourists sitting on benches on either side of them. It is a bit stage managed but it is probably as natural an environment as you will get and you do see them at close hand. As we left about 11 pm we had to stop to let one move off the road and we had seen close to two hundred return to their burrows. Photography was not allowed so sorry no visual proof.
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