Today we drove the odd 300km from Queenstown over to Dunedin. Didn’t have coffee before we left, decided I’d stop at small town roughly an hour into the journey. We braved State Highway 6 once more north to Cromwell then joined State Route 8 south east towards Milton.
I’m still amazed at how bad sections of the “State” routes can be. Route 8 is better than 6 but still has sections with narrow bends dropping below 40kph.
We had coffee and a muffin at the Merchant of Clyde Cafe and Bakery. Whilst NZ can’t do good roads, they can do amazing Cafes and coffee. Every town seems to have a couple of outstanding places and Clyde was no exception. Coffee was fantastic and I’m rating the Apricot muffin and one of the best I’ve ever had.
We continued along and had a quick stop at Roxburgh where I put a bit of electricity into the car just in case (although I need not have bothered as we would have easily made it to Dunedin). Again some more amazing looking cafes here too. Might be worth a stop on the way back.
After Milton we turn north for about 60km onto State highway 1 into Dunedin. About 20km from Dunedin we roll onto something I didn’t expect to see here at all…. A Motorway !
We arrive in Dunedin and my first impression is that’s it’s larger than I was expecting. We drive to the centre, park and start looking for lunch.
Dunedin is known for its Scottish heritage, but I wasn’t expecting the first shop I see to be “The Scottish Shop” and then see a lady walk part in a full tartan outfit. They obviously take it seriously here. Sharon found a few second handbag bookshops here (Dunedin apparently has the best ones in the country)
Found a great cafe in an old art deco building. The coffee and food was again fantastic. After a great lunch and great coffee we drove up to Larnach Castle where we are staying.
It's all about the coffee 