A Fishy Gift & A new House-Sit

Tuesday 25 August

After a wild & windy night, a beautiful sunrise greeted us as I opened our door at Lake Dunstan - the winds had died and the lake was almost flat, no lapping waves this morning.

• 

• 

The bikes were down still, so we hopped on them and cycled up to the dam, down to the bridge along the Clutha River Trail (which looked quite different when we last cycled here in the autumn under golden leaves 🍁) and up the hill into Clyde for brunch at The Merchant. Louis had creamy, mustardy mushrooms on toast while I had a slightly lacklustre veggie frittata - not a fan of carrots with egg!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

It was chilly but sunny morning so we sat outside with the hopeful sparrows waiting for us to leave them a few crumbs.

Had a stroll round Clyde and visited some of the lovely stores - fun stuff at Folklore - one day when we have a stationary home I’d love some nice things like these mice cheese knives, brie baker pots and glasses with glass lemon slices! But best of all the fold out cabinet with benches and table, from Yoyo, would be perfect for a tiny home but probably a wee bit too heavy for Banjo!

We zoomed back down to the iconic 90 year old Earnscleugh Bridge & puffed our way up the hill to the freedom camp.

• 

• 

As we arrived, George from the Autotrail in front of us came over and presented us with a trout he’d just caught. We’d chatted earlier and I’d said how I had missed trout since being in NZ as I used to buy it all the time in the UK (it’s illegal to sell it in NZ) and he’d decided to share one of his catch with us 🥰 Such a lovely gesture!

I pan fried it for lunch and then after a siesta and a wee potter around, we packed up Banjo and set off back across the bridge, through Clyde then up the east side of Lake Dunstan for a very wind-buffeted drive up to Cromwell for our next house sit.

• 

• 

We’d met Ania & our animal charges back in February so it was nice to reacquaint ourselves with her, Floyd, Mokka & Puss (real name Storm) and also to meet Gareth for the first time. We parked up Banjo on their driveway then Ania cooked us dinner, we enjoyed loads of doggo & puss snuggles and they walked us through all the instructions for when they were away. A lovely evening swapping animal & travel yarns before retiring to bed in Banjo for the last night in a while.