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Published: February 9th 2007
Giant Earthmover
Did the earth move for you too, Glynn?Staying by Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook has been an absolute dream and it was with a heavy heart that we made the decision to move on this morning. The weather wasn't quite as good as it had been for the last couple of days and Glynn and I were both nursing a bit of sunburn again despite all the sun cream we piled on yesterday. Poor Glynn got sunburnt lips so his morning wasn't much fun but that didn't stop him from taking one last dip in the glacier lake before we left. It was just too cold for me today though!
We stopped in Twizel (pronounced Twy-zel) briefly to pick up a few groceries and Glynn got to play on some giant heavy machinery that had been converted into a bit of a display/play area on the edge of town, which was pretty cool. We also popped in to the local Department of Conservation office to pick up a leaflet with details of all the DOC campsites on South Island. Many of the cheap places to stay that we've found purely by accident have been DOC campsites so we thought a map of other sites would definitely come
Froggle Rock
The Fellowship of the Frog made it all the way down the bad road to the Clay Cliffs. What a good van! in handy.
Just past Twizel was a road leading to a place known as the Clay Cliffs which I had read about in the guide book. If it weren't for the fact that we had seen a postcard of the Clay Cliffs and gone 'wow', we might not have bothered going there but it was so totally worth it. The road leading down to the cliffs was dreadful. It was possibly the worst gravel road we've yet encountered with divets and potholes everywhere. We thought it was a bit cheeky to find a sign asking for a NZ$5 donation per vehicle for the upkeep of the road considering the state it was in but once we had parked up and walked about 10 minutes towards the cliffs, we suddenly didn't quite mind so much.
The cliffs were like something from another planet. Jagged spires of rock towered above us, all formed by a natural erosion process that had caused weaker chunks of gravel to fall out leaving columns of stonger stone intact and the sight of it was awesome. From the path it looked pretty impressive already but we then came to an opening in the rocks where
Clay Cliffs
Here's Glynn on his way to the clay cliffs. They might not look like much from here but wait till you see inside the canyon! we could go right inside a kind of canyon where these sharp spikes surrounded us on every side. Columns of rock rose up a good 200m with craggy overhangs threatening to come crshing down at any moment. It was a bit perilous trying to walk around the canyon owing to all the loose rock the had fallen from the cliffs, some of it looking like part of recent landslides but it was really quite breathtaking just to be there and see it first hand. Glynn described it as like being inside an anthill which kind of sums it up nicely. Well worth the effort on that bad road. We got chatting to a really nice Australian family but with the hot sun beating down on us, we had no choice but to retreat back to the shelter of the campervan.
Leaving the Clay Cliffs behind us, we continued on through a number of insignificant towns with populations of no more than 100 people. The only stop we made was in a small town called Kurow where we endulged in some kumara chips for the first time. Kumara is a kind of sweet potato grown in New Zealand and the
Clay Cliffs
See, I told you it was awesome. chips tasted like a cross between normal spuds and parsnips. Yummy!
We decided to stop for the night in another small town called Duntroon whose only notable feature was a little cream coloured church that looked like it had been transported directly from a typical English village. We drove around trying to find the campsite shown on our map but had no luck. In the end we had to go for the next best option and had to drive a further 14 km towards Dansey's Pass to find somewhere with power that we could camp for the night. The campsite owner was a Yorkshireman and he regaled us with all sorts of information about the geology and fossils to be found in the area, so it looks like we'll have plenty to keep us busy tomorrow! Time now for a nice hot meal, I think :-)
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