This morning we set off from Sudima aboard our newly rented RV. Reef’s excitement was palpable as he insisted on opening and closing all doors and helping to put away item in cupboards (mainly he helped by opening and closing the cupboards).
Sharyl handled the land yacht with precision and grace right from the get go, effortlessly breezing through Roundabouts like she was born driving oversized vehicles on the left side of the road.
The road South out of Christchurch is quite flat and is all agricultural land. It is an area which could easily pass for the Midwest except for the mountains in the far distance and the occasional rolling hills (not probably as common in Iowa, Nebraska, or Michigan).
Eventually we arrived in Timaru, a large town roughly half way to Dunedin. We stopped into Speight’s Ale House for lunch - it was housed in a really cool building built in the 1870’s, and in the big open public area in front of the building was a public ping pong table painted all different colors.
As it turns out Speight’s is something like the Budweiser of New Zealand. It is New Zealand’s top selling beer and is owned by a Japanese conglomerate called Lion - so not exactly micro-brew. Sharyl had a half glass of beer and I had a pint of a different style they make, both were unremarkable. The food was good and we got Reef & River throwing bean bags playing a little corn hole while we waited for our order.
From there we were back on the road, with the boys quickly realizing that road trips can be pretty boring, River nodded off again and Reef began with the “when are we going to get there?” questions. Both boys though have been great throughout these long drives.
Thankfully as we passed through the town of Oamaru, about an hour before Dunedin, the drive got a bit more interesting with rolling hills, more frequent rivers, and stretches along the coastline. As we finally arrived into Dunedin the landscape which had been quite boring at the beginning of the trip had turned beautiful.
As it turns out this brewery was founded in Dunedin in 1992c, but recently was sold and is now also owned by Lion the same Japanese conglomerate that owns Speight’s. Yet Emerson’s has a fun vibe and brews a range of really good beers.
A few highlights from Emerson’s- out front they have a sign post showing the distance and direction to everywhere Richard Emerson brewed his beer from his start in his “Mum’s Kitchen” on to the current brewery we were visiting. Inside the front door of the brewery is an old Mini which is apparently very similar to Richard Emerson’s first Delivery Vehicle- which was a similar old Mini he removed the backseats from in order to fit in more beer. The mini on display is a mobile bar used for special events. Finally, on top of good beer (the Orange Roughy Hazy IPA and the London Porter were our favorites), and good food (the boys loved the Mac & Cheese), we were visited several times by Elwha! Or technically Alfie- but Alfie was a full on Elwha twin, and River was very excited to see the dog!
From there it was back to the holiday park to set up the camper van for the night. The boys were very excited about the bunk beds Sharyl & I got assembled despite constantly needing to remove one of them or the other from the partially completed set-up. And with that we close out the second chapter in our Lord Of The Wheel Trilogy.
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