Sunday Morning in Dunedin

Yesterday (our Saturday) was "explore downtown Dunedin" day.  We started off the day with breakfast downstairs, where one waitress was serving the entire place.  I've seen fast servers, but have never seen one that actually ran, and this one did.
We actually made it to the downtown area a few miles from our hotel without getting lost, and let the record show that I have now mastered the location of the turn signal lever.  I think Lillian may have been a little amazed and maybe even disappointed that there was one less item to point out in my list of mistakes and failings.  Nothing like a granddaughter to keep one humble.

Dunedin is a very Scottish city, and who could be more Scottish than the poet Robert Burns? Think you don't know any Burns?  How about "The best laid plans of mice and men aft go astray", just one line of a poem about a poor field mouse who's nest was torn up by the plow?  Dunedin, as it turns out, was founded by his nephew, Reverend Thomas Burns.  The plaque at the church expressed the ambitions of these early settlers:

Susan was happy to see that there are quilters in this part of the world, as the following picture will attest.  It was actually a quilt show, and there were quite a few interesting and beautiful quilts made by quilters in this area.  There was also a fabric store not too far away, and some fine marino fabrics were purchased for some project about which I haven't a clue.  I'm used to it.

Finally, here is a picture of Susan, Lillian and Rebecca at a sign post near our hotel, where it indicates that it is 14,893km (about 9,000 miles) to New York.  As you can see they were bundled up against the cool wind and occasional sprinkles of rain.  The forecast is for better weather later today, and we plan on going out to the albatross center at the end of the otago peninsula before heading to the airport to pick up Claira and Scott.  We haven't heard from them, but assume they've made all their connections.  We're also looking forward to seeing our bike tour leaders, Simon, Jessica, and Julian later today.  They're driving down from Christchurch with the bicycles that we'll be using starting Tuesday.

That's it for today.  Will try to post a couple more entries before the bike tour starts.  I'm not too sure if internet access will be available each day, so we may have to skip a day or two when we can't get to a computer.  Love to all,  Jim