Omarama - Day 6

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We wake up early eager to explore Dunedin before hitting the road this morning. Dunedin is so beautiful with its historic buildings and churches. I enjoy watching the sun rise from my window, its first rays casting a magical spell on the church across the street. We shower again in the morning - the showers were just too good, eat breakfast & pack up car. The land lady was taking too long so we thought we'd go explore Dunedin on foot and come back to check ourselves out (in first).

First Stop - Dunedin. Home of Speights (pride of the South) as Ang have been repeating throughout our journey. "Shabs we must have some Speights beers in the South Island - "Speights" pride of the South". So we head off the Speights Brewery. Then into the city centre where we admire the churches and the garden square with its statue of Robert Burns. One might think what the hell a statue of a famous Scottish poet is doing in Dunedin, New Zealand. There is a perfectly simple answer - the Scottish were the first settlers in the area, hence the huge increase of red headed people around us =) Spent about an hour or two exploring the city on foot and then headed back to the hostel. The land lady was in a right mood as we had parked in a no parking area and gave us a ear full. We apologized for not having seen the sign and paid our dues before moving on. Wish we had more time in Dunedin - was really keen to explore more of the historic city and the Otago Peninsula. Alas I will just have to return another day.

Second Stop - Shag Point. No idea why it was called that. But it was supposed to be a good place to view the fur seals so be stopped to check it out. What I didnt know at the time and only just found out was that a complete skeleton of a plesiosaur was removed from Shag Point and painstakingly reconstructed to now hold pride of place in the museum of Otago. Also didnt know at the time that the boulders at Shag Point are millions of years older than those at Moeraki, and unlike the Moeraki boulders, have their origin linked to marine reptiles of the Jurassic period. We definately saw no boulders at shag point. THe tide must have been in - damn that would have been cool to check out. Will have to return here one day. We did manage to see heaps of fur seals from a distance. At one point there where also a white birds nesting on the ground, the place was so stinky - wonder what the hel these birds eat. Excellent stopping place.

Third Stop - Moeraki Boulders. I had imagined that the entire length of the beach was covered in these boulders, didnt know that they are only concentrated in one small part of the beach. A breif history on the boulders is as below -

Moeraki Boulders - The Moeraki Boulders are huge spherical stones that are scattered over the sandy beaches, but they are not like ordinary round boulders that have been shaped by rivers and pounding seas. These boulders are classed as septarian concretions, and were formed in ancient sea floor sediments. They were created by a process similar to the formation of oyster pearls, where layers of material cover a central nucleus or core. For the oyster, this core is an irritating grain of sand. For the boulders, it was a fossil shell, bone fragment, or piece of wood. Lime minerals in the sea accumulated on the core over time, and the concretion grew into perfectly spherical shapes up to three metres in diameter. The original mudstone seabed has since been uplifted to form coastal cliffs. Erosion of the cliffs has released the three tonne captive boulders, which now lie in a haphazard jumble across the beach. Further erosion in the atmosphere has exposed a network of veins, which gives the boulders the appearance of turtle shells.

As one can imagine the boulders were quite fascinating, especially the way they looked like turtle shells. We sat around a while and observed the boulders while taking pics of the boulders and ourselves =) I had a quick change in the car park into my shorts as my jeans were soaked trying to get close to the boulders for a better pic. Having read so much about them I was glad to have been able to have checked them out for myself.

Fourth Stop - Oamaru. What a lovely little town, so historic and beatiful. We decided to stop here for lunch. Found a nice little supermarket to do some grocery and snack shopping. At the hot meals section we bought some hot & cheesy lasagna. Then parked the car by the beach and ate up the lasagna with some ginger beer - soooo good. One of the best meals we had. Then off we went on foot to explore the beach town of Oamaru. Lots of quaint little shops in old historic buildings selling oddities. Outside some of the stores were the old bicycles with big wheels that they used to use in the old days, horse drawn carriages, some of the owners were dressed up as if straight out of last century. It left as if we had time travelled back into time. Way cool.

Fifth Stop - Elephant Rocks. We almost drove past these, was not well sign posted. We stopped at Duntroon Museum and realized that we had just missed the turn off by one or two kms. Gathered a few brochures from the museum and headed for the Elephant rocks turnoff also known as "The Vanished World Trail". The maps sucked and were poorly constructed as we got lost a few times and had to do u-turns on dirt road only wide enough for a single car to pass through. Breif background on the Elephant Rocks is as below.

Elephant Rocks - The Elephant Rocks locality features strangely sculptured remnants of Otekaike Limestone. The limestone started out as limey sand on the sea floor perhaps 24 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch. Later, the limey sand was buried and gradually turned into rock. In recent geological times, probably within the last million years, the limestone was uplifted. Water and wind weathered the limestone into the shapes before you. If you look closely, you may see some of the original "bedding" (original sea floor) still indicated by lines in the rock.

Probably named so because to a kiwi bloke they looked like Elephants - ingenuity!! We walked around for ages enjoying the strange rock formations. Angie was now tired of this stop and wanted to move on - not so fast =) I stopped at every possible stop and enjoyed the lime cliff faces and at another spot I saw the bones of a whale. I was having fun and in no hurry to move on - poor Angie was getting so aggravated by now, hahahahaha.

Final Stop - Omarama. Small town with no attractions. Here we were staying in a holiday park even after our bad experience in Wellington when we had vowed never to stay at holiday parks and yet here we were again at a holiday park. There was no back packer accomodation available that we could find so it had to the holiday park. We got a little wooden cabin with no linen on the beds. Anyhow we improvised and had a blanket and sleeping bag in the boot of the car. We had bought some fresh steak pieces in town and marinated them. So after a shower we lit up the bbq and braaied our steaks - the best cooked steaks or we were so hungry, simply melted in our mouths. Sat and ate in the gazebo watching the sunset and sipping on a glass of wine. Chatted a bit about the journey so far and life in general before calling it a night.

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Photos

Another Church
much bigger than any we've seen.

City Centre
With stutue of Robert Burns

Comments

[Billy]

Shag point
Its called Shag point because of the shags aka, cormorants, fish eating birds. Those boulders are wicked! Some cool photography.. PS: Love the pic of you in the white cap and t - cool one!