May 3, 2008

May 3, 2008 – Oamaru to Dunedin

 

Weather:  Mostly sunny and about 5C.

 

Today was a short drive day with only about 120km to go.  The day was nice for the most part with some drizzle but mostly sunny.  We made a stop at the Moeraki Boulders to view these amazing spherical stone boulders.  Most are about 4-5 feet in diameter with some smaller and some larger.  The Maori legend is that these were the fruit that fell out of their ancestors wakas (large sailing rafts or boats) and ended up on the beach and became petrified.  There is a scientific explanation but the Maori legend is better.

 

 

 

Just south of Moeraki we all took the Trotter’s Gorge side road.  We had great views of the gorge as we drove through.  This also gave a little bit of practice driving on narrow curving roads for the team getting ready for Rte 6 over the Haast Pass and west coast.

 

As we headed on down to Dunedin we started seeing snow along the road.  We had never seen snow here at this time of year before.  The residents are saying that they went directly from summer to winter this year.  We are hoping that the snow holds off until we get our touring done on the south island.  Roy, being kind of a warm weather guy, said that he thought since we were going south it would be warm.  In New Zealand the further you go south the colder it gets and the further north the warmer so we’re hoping for warmer weather on the north island.

 

After getting Jack and Shirley’s LP gas smell problem analyzed we piled into our camper and Jay and Joyce’s camper and took a drive up the Otago peninsula to the Albatross Center.  It’s the only place in the southern hemisphere that you can see albatross nesting that is accessible on land.  They currently have three chicks on nests two of which you can see from the viewing blind and one that is over the edge of the hill that you can watch on a video cam.  The last time we were there we saw three or four adults in flight but this year we didn’t get to see any.  Later we were talking to an Australian lady in the campground rec room and they saw adults flying about 1:30PM.  We weren’t there until around 3PM.  Just like fishing – “you should have been here yesterday, two hours ago, etc”.  There is also a large group of shags that nest there.  They build their nests out of mud and grass and very close to each other closer to the water.  The whole presentation done by the Center is very educational.  If you get a chance look up albatrosses sometime and read about them.  Too lengthy to go into here.

 

Coming back to town we drove through the center of town, through the octagon (the center) and then through the Otago University area.  Earlier in the day someone had driven close to there and got into a large traffic jam because they were having graduation ceremonies at the university.

 

 

 

Life is good.