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Luckily it didn’t rain in the night, so after John had gone for a morning stroll to some caves, which he said were disappointing, we easily pulled out of Trotters Gorge into the bright sunshine. There’s quite a lot of discussion on the radio about the mild autumn - we’re just awfully grateful!
Our first stop was to see the Moeraki Boulders, something I’d been keen to see ever since Andy and Claire showed us their photos with Claire standing on huge round balls of what looks like granite. Apparently they were formed 65 million years ago by a layering process similar to that which forms oyster pearls. All I know is that they looked fairly spectacular on the sunny beach as we walked up to them. John happily clambered up and posed for me ... but I bet the blog doesn’t show the photos of him trying to get down!
And then
it was on to Oamaru - and wow - this was the great surprise for us! We drove down the street and could see round every bend the most stunning white buildings, many with columns and pedestals and other architectural wonders. A potted history in a nutshell - the first settler arrived early mid 1800s - the area was good for farming as it had no trees, so the fields didn’t need to be cleared. The natural harbour and the goldrush also helped to make Oamaru into one of NZ’s major cities. It is from here that the first frozen lamb was sent to the UK. Due to the lack of trees, there was no wood for building, so they looked around and started to use the local limestone, now known as Oamaru stone. Several factors contributed to the demise of the city: the shallow harbour couldn’t take the larger ships so the railroad and exporters went elsewhere, it became one of the most heavily mortgaged cities in the Southern Hemisphere so building stopped and the artisans took their skills elsewhere, and prohibition was introduced! By the early 20th Century, it was a virtual ghost town and thus stayed in
a time warp, with the buildings remaining as they were.
What an absolute joy they were too - not only the grandeur of the banks and the opera house, but the original post office next door to its grander replacement (built only a few years after the original). Indeed it’s staggering to see that most of the building took place in a matter of a few years. I especially enjoyed poking around the wharves and older warehouse buildings. We really enjoyed our time here, and I’ve got to say that Oamaru is probably one of our favourite towns in NZ - it’s up there with Coromandel.
We set off out of town and soon found ourselves wandering around the elephant rocks - limestone remnants of what must have been higher cliffs. They were utterly fascinating, and I only hope that our photos do justice to some of the sights that we’ve seen today - it really has been a very special day.
Now I’ve been very good up until now and barely mentioned the way that the Kiwis mangle the English language. We’d been warned, mainly by Australians, that the NZ accent is a little hard to
understand, but I confess I didn’t think I’d have a problem having travelled with Kiwis quite a lot over the years. But my goodness, some accents are so strong it’s like they’re speaking a different language - I’ve been trying to work out how to explain this, and John’s attempts at copying them results in more of a South African accent (which is good, because I always end up sounding Welsh) - but suffice it to say that Nick Clegg, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, is known here as Neck Cligg.
So there we go, #72, The Moeraki Boulders crossed off the list, and only one creek worthy of mention ... Baghdad Creek!!
Speaking of creeks - you may recall me mentioning how much driftwood we’d seen on the beaches. We’ve been told that it is quite a nuisance as the tide pushes it up the creeks, which then blocks them and causes localised flooding. And there’d been me quite envious of it - just goes to show there’s always two sides...
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