Time to Say Goodbye

I was extremely sad as I had to say goodbye to Tristan, Izaak and Mia.  They had to head out to work and school.  It was another incredibly sunny day with a slight cold tinge.

Jenny and I went to Riverside which had a small array of curiose shops that were jammed pack full of all sorts of stuff including Christmas and Halloween items.  I could have spent a small fortune but alas I couldn’t fit them into my suitcase. 

We bumped into 4 people that we had seen yesterday.  We had lunch at the Riverside cafe then it was time that I had to say farewell to my good friend Jenny. 

I drove to Timaru and discovered that my Airbnb is behind a funeral parlour. A lovely lady called Faith who originated from Birkenhead, showed me the room. I have some patio doors which lead out to a immaculate garden which has great tomato plants and a beehive.

After a quick nap, I went and parked behind the visitors centre and managed to find a hat which cost 2.50NZD.

I managed to alter the day for star gazing and drove to Fairlie to have dinner at a very welcoming place called The Red Stag. The staff were extremely friendly and helpful. I forgot to mention about being gluten free and remembered 5 minutes after I had ordered but that was no problem. They also did a small portion for my main which was fantastic as sometimes I get overwhelmed when I am presented with a huge amount of food and I hate wasting it. The place also let me stay until it was time to go for the star gazing.

At 9.45pm I headed over to the cafe and bumped into the young guy who was waiting on at the red stag. He had decided to pop over and see his friends. Daniel and James were setting up the telescope at the back of a mini golf area. They have not been doing this tour for long which you could tell but it was funny a bit like a comedy act and James kept repeating facts. James was a Mauri and knew his stuff about how they used the stars for navigation. He pointed out 2 streams of satellites, the first line we saw were 8 satellites travelling in a curved line with about 10 cm gap between each one and the second line was about 100 satellites all bunched together that looked like an express train travelling across the celestial sky. James pointed out how to find the South star, the milky way and a supernova. I also saw a shooting star, I couldn’t take any photos on my phone but it was amazing.  Unfortunately there was no moon and towards the end of the tour, the high clouds hid a quarter of the heavens.