On Thursday we drove from Te Anau to Dunedin in the rain. We've generally had great weather on the famously wet West Coast, so it's funny that we should hit rain as we head east again.
The drive was notably for the fact that the milometer (kilometer-ometer?) in the Orca went round to 50,000km on the way. As you can imagine, that got a big "Oooh" from both of us.
Dunedin is very hilly. I gather that Dunedin is the Celtic name for Edinburgh, and there are Robert Burns pubs and other Scotch stuff around. It's principally a university town though, so lots of studenty bars around.
It's also where Cadburys have their NZ factory, and we went on a factory tour on Friday morning. It was a little pricey, but we got a few free samples and also spent an extra $10 in the discount choccy shop afterwards (half of that on drinking chocolate - mmmm).
Now, our choccy bar du choice on our NZ hikes has been the Cadburys Moro. This is basically the Cadburys version of the Mars Bar, but in my opinion the slightly more chewy nougat makes your Moro a superior snack to your Mars. I never thought I'd belittle the Mars, but there you go - I've said it. We've not tried the peanut Moro yet (I assume, a Snickers). The lady doing the tour assured us that Moros preceded Mars bars. Maybe in NZ they did, but I'm not so sure. If anyone wishes to research this I'd appreciate knowing.
Beardy weirdy
As many of you know, I've had fun with my hair whilst travelling, mainly by shaving it all off. In the last few weeks I've been compensating for this a little by growing a "beard". I hesitate to call it a beard-proper since I'm not actually physically able to grow a proper one. My beard is patchy and thin, though my hair clippers have enabled me to keep it short and neat rather than long and messy (which looks much worse with a patchy beard).
On the Cadburys tour we had to wear white hair nets on our heads when in the factory. Imagine my joy when I was also asked to wear a "snood" over my "facial hair". I was so proud that the lady had noticed my beard, as it barely even shows up on photos. I wore my snood with pride and even took it away with me afterwards.
I have facial hair. And someone other than Anne noticed!
Anne's bad reading habits
Anne's been reading loads of books while travelling. What she's also enjoyed reading, however, are woman's gossip mags. These are often left in hostels and when Anne spies one she jumps on it (and then reads it). The bad thing is I find myself reading them too. Even worse, I get drawn in.
The other day I was reading over Anne's shoulder and said, "I don't know why Victoria Beckham doesn't move to Spain to be with David. She has no career to speak of in the UK and it could save their marriage."
Anne stared at me, shocked. I immediately felt VERY embarrassed. Not only was I reading the worthless rag, I was becoming interested and offering advice to a celebrity. Please, kill me now!