This morning we checked out of the backpackers in Oamaru and left for Dunedin. I decided to go through the mountains, so we headed inland to drive over Denseys Pass rather than simply driving down the coast. The scenery was amazing and everywhere you looked there were endless mountains. Of course I stopped to photograph everything!
We spotted some huge button mushrooms in one of the fields we were driving by and E. said they were called Horse Mushrooms and that you could eat them. We stopped the car and snug through the fence to pick a couple and take them for dinner.
After we got through the mountains we passed Denseys Pass Hotel and decided to stop for a beer and slice of cake. The hotel was amazing! It was all made of wood and looked like a big Texas ranch. Inside the bar there were huge leather couches in front of an enormous open fire that was crackling and burning. We sat outside and drank our beer in the sun. While we were there a group of people driving vintage cars slowly arrived one by one and we heard them talking about stopping to pick mushrooms on their way as well. Reluctantly we left the lovely place, not without a picture of the vintage cars, and went on to Dunedin.
Again we drove through mountains with sheep on the road and fantastic cloud formations. I’m pretty sure, there is a little man with a cloud machine sitting somewhere preparing them only for the tourists. It can’t be real!
Out of the mountains we saw fields with Horse Mushrooms, there were hundreds of them, I’ve never seen so many wild mushrooms before – unbelievable. We could have picked them for selling! Nevertheless we picked one bag as a guest present for E.’s friend we will visit tonight.
We found our hostel, checked in, cooked dinner and I got many questions about my really huge mushroom. They couldn’t believe our story of hundreds of them in the fields.
