These cliffs just seemingly looked like they were magically transported from Utah to NZ and certainly didn't fit with the rest of the landscape in the area. There was no real explanation of their origin at the spot, but they were certainly cool to see and we even go to hike up and around the rock formations. Kevin of course had to see how far he could scramble up. It was rather steep (but not dangerous) in parts, so we had to almost slide down on our butts so that we wouldn't skid down. Without further ado, pics:
After that detour, we continued onwards until we happened upon a sign for some old rock drawings by the Maori people. After the last successful stop, we were more than a bit disappointed. The drawings were all either (1) faded, (2) vandalized/ graffiti-ed, or (3) removed and kept in a museum. At least the rock they were on was cool looking and it was only a 5 minute detour.
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| Maori drawing locale |
After that, we drove straight until we got to the beach and started heading down the coast. Our next detour was well worth it, to see the "Moeraki Boulders". Basically, these were limestone boulders that eroded in such a way due to their rock composition that they were strangely round spheres. There were about 15-20 strewn about the beach.
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| from far away |
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| Boulder pose |
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| Yaaa boulders. It was a bit windy, thus the jackets. |
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| One was broken open and sort of had a little ecosystem going on inside it (see below). |
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| Tide pool inside the broken boulder. |
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| More boulders with water surrounding |
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| Funny bird at beach. |
Finally, we arrived at our hotel, which was a holiday park. Apparently that means that a million people with RVs are there and you don't get very much privacy. The room was fine though and it was a nice size room for the price. We then drove to downtown Dunedin and got dinner at a nice place called Gaslight that had sort of a French/ Italian theme going. A nice ending to a cool day of road tripping.
Dunedin Sightseeing 2/20/17
We woke up to a cloudy morning, so we decided we should start by walking around town. Dunedin is a cute city, with a main street lined with restaurants and stores with sort of a strip setup. Then, at the very center is the "octagon". As you might guess, this is an octagon shaped street, with then another outer perimeter of octagon. At the center is a government building, church, tourist center, and more restaurants and shops. Another pretty cool thing was the abundance of craftily done street art.
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| Government Building in octagon |
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| Church in octagon |
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| Statue at center of Octagon |
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| Stef's favorite street art! |
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| More street art |
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| And even more street art - he fit just perfect |
After the octagon, we widened our walk and saw another nice church, the impressive old train station, and the Cadbury factory. We decided to return to the Cadbury factory for a tour, but first we went to the Otago Settlers Museum. This museum went through the history of who the people of NZ are and how they came to be there. It was actually a free museum, but was extremely well put together and was well worth the visit.
After that we did the Cadbury tour which turned out to be just visiting some conference-type rooms and learning about the chocolate process and getting a ton of free chocolate. We didn't actually get to see inside the factory, though we saw a few workers walk by with white coats sort of covered in chocolate. Well, we did eat chocolate to our heart's content and our stomach's discontent. Also, they had converted the silo into a chocolate waterfall, purely for entertainment purposes... and it was entertaining though sort of pointless.
Apparently the factory is one of 62 in the world and it has been in Dunedin for about 100 years, but we heard from our waiter the night prior that they had just announced that they were moving the factory to Australia. There was of course no mention of this during the tour.
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| Another church |
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| Train depot. Apparently it's really nice inside too but we didn't get a chance to check it out. |
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| Cadbury from outside. |
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| Old train in Otago Settler's museum. You otherwise can't take pictures in the museum. |
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| Yet another pretty church |
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| Happy after eating all of the chocolate with Cadbury's old delivery truck behind me as well as the silo far away. The buildings to the left and right house the factory. They mainly make the marshmallow type Cadbury products at this facility. |
After all of that chocolate for lunch, it was probably time to burn it off. So we went to Tunnel Beach and didn't really know what to expect. Oh man was it cool! It actually topped Moeraki Boulders and is one of the prettiest beaches we have been to. It was a steep walk down, but then you see tall cliffs dropping off into the ocean and a "tunnel" in one of the edges that juts out into the sea. There was also a staircase/ tunnel bored into the rock that allowed you to walk down to the beach.
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| Steep walk down |
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| First view of formations |
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| Tunnel with water flowing through is on the right side of that "Y" shaped feature. We were able to walk around up there. |
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| Of course Kevin had to climb on top of the most dangerous part. |
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| Or if you think it's more dangerous to stand right here, next to the tunnel, he also did that. |
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| It was cool to see the waves crashing into the rocks/ cliffs. |
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| Climbing around down at the beach part. It's rocks and boulders and then sand closer to the ocean. |
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| Kevin is a great explorer |
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| Beach Panorama |
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| Happy and enjoying the pretty sights |
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| Crazy rock formations... look at that skinny perpendicular cliff. It looks like someone just went in and cut a rectangular piece of cliff out. |
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| Bottom exit of the stairs to the beach |
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| Taking the stairs back up |
After that, it was time for our scheduled tour at "Penguin Place", which is a penguin sanctuary on the Otago peninsula. This peninsula juts out from Dunedin and the road north up the coast follows the water and is VERY windy. We didn't drive off the edge, so that was good. So, we got to see the penguin hospital just as the penguins were about to be fed! I have a video of them ravenously fighting and slapping each other to get fish, but it won't sync, so I'll probably do a separate post at the end of this series to show you this.
After that, we saw some seals, some young penguins from far away, then spotted far away on the beach one of the adult penguins coming in from hunting for the day. She waddled sooo slowly down the beach. We quickly went to the tunnel system, which felt like WW2 bunkers, and waited at the spot where she eventually came out. She stopped right there and started calling out to the other penguins. She seemed to be waiting for her spouse (penguins are monogamous), so we continued onwards to go see her child.
The young penguin was hanging out only a foot from the window, so we got a very good view of him/ her (they can't tell the gender of penguins very easily). See below for pics and more commentary.
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| Young penguins waiting for dinner time. They have been rounded up from all over the coast to be fattened up before they go out into the ocean for the first time on their own. The species is endangered, and numbers are getting worse, so staff is doing what they can to give these guys are better chance this season. |
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| Staff feeding a couple of sick penguins |
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| Dinner time! |
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| The fight to get some fish |
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| Seals |
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| Young adult penguins from far away |
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| Mama penguin coming home from a day of hunting |
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| Viewing from the tunnel. Look how close he was! The reason it is a small slit is because it makes us look like we are tiny.. this way they aren't afraid of us. The penguin is well aware that we are there. |
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| Hey there buuuuddy. |
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| Posing |
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| Waving at me, "Hey come back I have more poses for you". |
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| Hi |
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| I believe I can flyyy..... |
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| Tunnel system |
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| Cool flowers |
After the penguin tour we thought that it would be fun to see some seals. We tried to drive to a viewpoint north, near the Condor sanctuary, but had no luck. Then we drove to the other side of the peninsula which involved a windy round with steep drops (welcome to NZ). The top of the peninsula was lost in the clouds and parts of the road were barely wide enough for one car, so I wouldn't call the drive pleasant. We got there as it started getting close to dusk, so we decided to just take a quick look. No seals.. but more pretty cliffs!
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| North part of Otago Peninsula |
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| Bunny! |
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| Eastern Shore of Otago Peninsula |
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| Sunset as we drove back to Dunedin along the coast |
Dunedin to Te Anau 2/21/17
The following day we just needed to get to Te Anau, which was another 3 hours away or so. We were on the southeast part of the island and we needed to go to the southwest. First we did some laundry in town in preparation for our upcoming hike. Then we started the drive.
We were disappointed about not seeing more seals the prior day, so we decided to make another attempt at Nugget Point. This detour took about an hour, but was well worth it for a lovely view & lighthouse. Kevin saw some seals as well, but it was a very big drop so Stef was not interested in looking down.
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| Rocks in front of the lighthouse |
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| The ~15 minute walk to the lighthouse was along a wide path next to that cliffy area... worth it but not Stef's favorite. It was probably a 300 ft. drop next to us? |
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| Hi Stef's family. Enjoy this funny sign. |
After the detour, we drove straight onwards to Te Anau. We checked in, then walked to dinner, which involved cutting through a small park. More on Te Anau and our next hike in the next entry!
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| Te Anau park |
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