Road Trip!!! Naked Sheep!!!

Here's a whole post about the road trip I took with Trond from December 12-16th!

We left Christchurch on Monday afternoon and stayed with his sister in Timaru, about two hours to the south.  The sunset that night was gorgeous!

I've been told that summer in Christchurch almost guarantees skies like this.  I'm waiting~

The next day didn't go quite as planned.  Our intention was to be in the Catlins Conservation Park that night, but we leisurely made out way down the coast, stopping often at areas of interest (or natural beauty, which is basically the same thing).  It was actually a really nice day.  We stopped for a picnic lunch at the Waitaki River.  It was so lovely that we ended up sitting there for an hour, reading.

Very cold glacial river.  But oh-so pretty!

South in Oamaru, we stopped at something completely random.  As a preamble to this, you should know that Oamaru is an old-fashioned, mostly Victorian-Era town.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steampunk, it is a sort of style/fashion.  It started as a subgenre of fiction (think H.G. Wells).  It combines Victorian Era dress and machinery.  For a more full explanation, follow this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
I think the most helpful part of that article says that Steampunk is what Victorians would have thought futuristic inventions would be like, based on the technology of the day.
Also in Oamaru was a penguin colony.  Sadly, no penguins, but some fantastic ocean waves breaking on the pier.

Further south, we paused for a little while near Hampden.  There was a campsite of sorts just along the beach there.  Incredibly gorgeous.  We wished it was further along so we might have stopped there for the night.

VERY powdery sand

But onward we had to go.  All along the road, I stayed alert to photo opportunities or the chance to giggle (YET again) at all the sheep, freshly sheared and "naked" as I called them.  That night, we got as far as Dunedin, which as some of you may recall, was the town in which I spent the majority of my time when I was last in New Zealand.  Our family friends were not there in their home.  I called at the McClean Falls Holiday Park, which they own.  Lynn and Paul, the owners, were actually in Dunedin on business.  Their capable daughter Nicole informed us that we could come the next night just as easily, so that's where we left it.

A quick trip to the local library (Free internet?  Madness!) pointed us in the direction of some hostels.  After a bit of a walk, we found one that suited just fine.  And when I say that it was a closet with a double bed in it, I'm not exaggerating.

Told you.

The next morning dawned somewhat cloudy and promised rain.  But determinedly, we drove out the to albatross colony on Harington Point.  Unfortunately, they charge crazy amounts of money to actually go through the building to the side of the hill where the albatross nest, but judging by the webcams in the visitor's center, there were only two on the blustery hillside as it was.  After a brief walk around the area, and many gull sightings, we were back in the car to continue heading south.

Harington Point

We decided to veer off the highway and take the coastal route from here.  It was completely worth it.  Not only were there sweeping views of the coastline, but really quaint little towns along the way.  Not to mention the one lane bridges, which became increasingly common.  When the road veered back toward the highway, there's a nice stretch through some hills that's quite picturesque.

Meanwhile, Trond had been telling me about a place called Nugget Point since we started talking about this trip, so we made our way for that.  I was really looking forward to it.  For those of you following maps as we go, we turned off the highway again at a town called Balclutha.  (Also, Nugget Point doesn't appear to be on the map, but look for Roaring Bay). A long gravel road along the coast led there. I was a little worried about the car getting a flat (not exactly a 4 wheel drive).  But I figured if other cars could do it, so could we.  Actually it turned out that many of the roads in this part of the country were gravel, especially when it came to driving to somewhere scenic. 

There were two parts of Nugget Point, a lower and an upper.  The lower one took us to Roaring Bay, which is home to penguins.  Still no penguin sightings, but saw some fur seals.  Also, I took many pictures of waves, which I will not bore you with here.  The upper area, however, offered sweeping views of the coastline to the north, as well as a lovely "hike" out to the lighthouse on the point.  It should be mentioned that this pathway made me a little nervous, being about six feet wide without a railing on one the cliff side.  Trond thought I was silly for not walking next to him, but rather behind him.  I'm still standing by my decision.

The views of Nugget Point were spectacular, but I'll leave you with my favorite.

Where Nugget Point gets its name.

As we got closer to the interior of Catlins Conservation Park, the area became more and more covered in trees until we were in a lush, highly unrecognizable forest.  Virtually none of the trees were known to me, which made it feel other worldly.  The Manuka Tree (the only one Trond could point out with confidence) gets very tall and THEN branches out, with small white flowers blooming out the top which produce a sweet fragrance.  We arrived at the McLean Falls Holiday Park just at sunset and barely made it in time for the kitchen.  The food at The Whistling Frog Cafe was DELICIOUS, Trond having fresh fish and me going with the lamb.  (Ample sampling from both sides).  We went for the wine and dessert as well.  Nestled within the trees with the surf nonetheless making its presence known, the spot was peaceful and relaxing.

Trond went to our cabin in the park while I caught up with Nicole.  I even interviewed a retired couple from Holland about their experiences touring New Zealand.  You may recall it is my plan to start writing about tourism post-quake blog.  I'm getting on that very soon...the recent quakes have upset the formatting a little!

The next morning we had a dilemma which depended entirely on the tide.  There are two places in the area worth seeing in low tide.  Firstly, Cathedral Caves down on the beach.  Secondly, a petrified forest at Curio Bay.  Both are only accessible at low tide.  But also famous in the area is McClean Falls.  And, most importantly, we were not ready to leave until 10 and low tide was at 12:30.  As I am a photo junky, the hike to McLean Falls took "longer than expected."  I wouldn't shorten it at all, though.  It was spectacular.

Along the meandering pathway were close-up views of all those unrecognizable trees, including the Tree Fern, which is exactly how it sounds.

Trunks with ferns on top!  What will they think of next?

After we emerged from the forest, we decided we had to choose between the two beach-going activities.  In the interest of making headway, and being rather into "the strange" we opted for Curio Bay and the petrified forest.  The weather took a turn for the worse at this point: drizzly, windy, and cold. But we persevered.  The petrified forest was pretty awesome.  The trees were on their sides, park of the surrounding tide pools.  Interesting little "mounds" popped up everywhere in which petrified stumps had been encased.

We took a brief stop at Slope Point, the southernmost point on the South Island.  We were rather soaked and cold from our time in Curio Bay, so we didn't get out of the car to walk the 20 minutes down to the water.  But we did get to see what Slope Point's famous windblown trees.

Next we went to Bluff for lunch.  Up on the hill overlooking the town, we could discern the harbor and the incredibly long pier below us.  I think that pier was a good mile long, but when you can understand why when you see the sandbars around it.

Our time in the south was finished (really that's about as south as you can get), so north we went!  On our way to Queenstown, we went through some really fantastic country.  Particularly beautiful was the bit around Lake Wakatipu. 

 

 

When we arrived in Queenstown, we were still along Lake Wakatipu, which has a strange shape to it.  The place is overrun with tourists, as this is the adventure sports capital of New Zealand.  I think we shortly thereafter drove past the place where Meghan went bungee jumping, in fact.  But we were only pausing in Queenstown for dinner, which we had at Hell's Pizza.  It's a rather amusing chain with thematic purchases.  We had a nice view while we waited for the pizza to be finished:

That night, we drove just a little bit further along the highway and stopped at a random campsite along the road on the shore of Lake Dunstan.  It was quite dark at that point, and raining pretty hard, so we set up our nest of comforters and sleeping bags in the car, and passed out.  As an extra precaution, we parked between two Eucalyptus trees.  In the morning, this is where we were.

This last day, we drove through some more really nice countryside of a different variety.  We began in a river valley, which had a fair amount of vineyards.  As we drove on, Lupin flowers began to pop up in groups along the road.  We paralleled a creek for a while, and as we did, more and more flowers appeared until the whole valley was filled with them.  I had never seen so many in one place.

 

Then we started getting into more rugged, open spaces.  Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery at a VERY inconvenient time: Lindis Pass.  It was still a bit misty this day, but that made for some pretty interesting photos.

For all you Lord of the Rings fans, this was quite near where they filmed the battle outside of Gondor. (Pelennor Fields, if you're extra geeky).

Lindis Pass, though not represented in these photos (nor the gorgeous limestone cliffs shortly thereafter), was rough land.  Rocks jutted out from hillsides and piles of rocks at the bottom suggested long durations of rockfalls.  I hope that I get to go there again before I leave New Zealand, so I can take proper pictures.

Well, that was pretty much the road trip.  The last day was simply us driving back to Christchurch.  To be honest I slept during the second half of that.  Trond seemed alright with it since he had some lectures he wanted to listen to anyway.  The most amusing aspect of the actual driving part had to do with the windows.  Firstly, they roll down manually.  So every time I wanted to take a picture, I had to roll it down rapidly.  I was actually getting a bruise on my left hand toward the end!  The other point of amusement is that Trond always kept his window open a crack, since the defroster is not fast enough.  But every time I opened mine for a snapshot, the rain would come whooshing in on him.  As a result, we eventually developed a system of me saying, "Rolling down my window!" while he quickly rolled his up.

As expected, New Zealand is a fantastically photogenic country, even if the weather is less than optimal.  I took no less than 1,000 photos on this trip, and at least a few hundred since.  Lots HAS happened since then, including Christmas, earthquakes, and a phenomenon called, "Big Gaming Week" which will all be explained in due course.