Temuka and Waimate - road trip continuing!

I adore small towns - even more so when they have historic buildings in them! (Auckland has a tendency to bulldoze anything and replace it with a shiny tower....).

These two are small towns in the South Island with an awful lot of charm.

I'm not sure I could ever live in a really small town (and I consider Auckland to be small... even though it's the largest city in New Zealand!), but i love visiting them.

(One day we'd probably like to get out of this city - it's a traffic nightmare - that's the thing that drives me crazy! Houses are over $1 million for a truly ordinary house now, and my kids will never be able to afford to buy here and renting is going much the same way... ).

These small towns had pocket money houses to me - full of charm and delight. I'm not sure if there are many jobs though, though you do make of a place what it is I believe! I'm willing to live anywhere really and give it a go!

Great little op shops in both places. Wide streets, few cars, few people....

Fantastic to spend a couple of hours wondering around, before getting back in the car to continue the journey further south! It's always good to support little townships and their independent businesses too!

And neat to see more of New Zealand! There are just a few small pockets I haven't visited now! 

 This is Waimate below - I was totally blown away and took an awful lot of photos! The town is well known for a drifting race - i think this might be the event of the year for the town!

 These old grain silo murals were amazing!

 There wasn't a lot of action in the town, but it did have a decent proper harberdashery shop with Liberty fabric which impressed me! Never right small towns off!