4May06 - Oamaru to Dunedin

4May06

This afternoon the 2006 Care-A-Vanner’s arrived in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Dunedin.  The drive from Oamaru to Dunedin was beautiful and of increasing rolling hills especially as we got closer to Dunedin.  We began getting some nice vistas of the Southern Alps to the west the closer we got to Dunedin.  Along the way we stopped at the Moerakai Boulders and walked around them in amazement and marveled in how large they are and their almost perfect spherical shape.  The beach this year was covered with piles of very large kelp that had washed ashore.  The local folks think that it was some of the severe storms that had broken them loose and then washed them in from out at sea.  They were the largest specimens that we had ever seen.  After the walk on the beach we stopped at the café there and had sandwiches, cherry and walnut delicacies for lunch.

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A short distance south of the Moerakai Boulders is a road off to the right called Horse Range Rd. that goes through Trotter’s Gorge.  The road is only 1 ½ lanes wide most of the way so some caution has to be used to watch for oncoming cars of which we only encountered 1 through the 5 km drive.  Trotter’s Gorge is a very nice drive through some very interesting scenery.  There are some shear cliffs and vertical walls along with the rolling hills and herds of sheep.  There was some repair work going on to fix some problems created by the rains a few weeks ago.

 

We called David Brown who is our coordinator for the local Dunedin Habitat affiliate.  He came to the Leith Valley Touring Park where we are staying and greeted and welcomed us to Dunedin.  He then went with a couple of us to go down and rent two vans that we are using for transportation to and from the build site.  Once back at the campground we all loaded up and went to Martin’s (the construction supervisor) church and had a welcoming supper put on by the church for us.  It was a very nice welcoming get-to-gather and gave us a chance to meet a number of the Dunedin Habitat members.

 

The combination of the beautiful scenery and the people here makes this a wonderful place to come.  Just a couple stories of hospitality came out in the discussions last night.  A couple who had been traveling in Australia and met another couple who live in Christchurch told about the New Zealand couple insisting that they call them just as soon as they arrived at the Christchurch airport.  They arrived the day before the rest of us got here.  When they called them the couple insisted that they come to their house for a barbecue dinner which they agreed to.  When asked if they had a place to stay they then insisted that they stay with them at their home for the night.  In the end the chance meeting of an American couple and a New Zealand couple in Australia resulted the in beginning of a new friendship.

 

Another couple knew a family in Timaru, a town on the way from Christchurch to Oamaru.  The association was a friendship between their son and wife and this couple when they were both teachers someplace in the mission field.  They had never met but again there was the insistence that they stop and have dinner with them.  The people here are very warm and anxious to create lasting friendships.

 

Our Care-A-Vanner team is a group of eight couples and two single ladies from Ohio (us), North Dakota, Texas (full time RVer’s that use Escapee’s mailing service), North Carolina, Oregon, New Hampshire, California, Pennsylvania, and one couple from Ontario, Canada.  This is also the beginning of some great new friendships as happened last year.  It’s amazing how such a group of strangers can come together with a common interest and purpose and develop very quickly into a working team and friends so quickly.