November 2, Friday

November 2, Friday

It took me longer to pack up than I had thought this morning, but by 10:30 I was checking out of the motel and hitting the road south towards Dunedin.  Only about 400 kms to cover today, providing me with some time to stop along the way.

 I could see the Southern Alps in the distance; they were there most of the way.

 And there were sheep EVERYWHERE.

Stopped in Oamaru at the Tourist Information Centre to get information about the penguin colonies.  Unfortunately it is the same story as Phillip Island:  no photos allowed and it is after the sun goes down.  The sun sets after 8:30 pm here, and I really want to get to Dunedin today, so I decided to give it a pass.  I was intending to take the scenic route along the coast from here but I tried it and it just was not working out.  I would have needed a co-pilot to read the directions since they did not provide a map, nor were there route markers.  I gave up within a few kilometers and returned to highway #1. 


 My next stop was at Moeraki Boulders

“The spherical boulders on the beach did not originate from bedrock in the way boulders normally do; they are concretions. The process by which concretions are formed is similar to the way a pearl forms around a particle in an oyster. The particle around which these boulders formed might have been a small fossil shell, a bone fragment, or even a scrap of wood. The boulders are built up from a mineral called calcite. When they are exposed to weathering effect of the sea they lose their outer layers, and this leaves hard veins of crystallised calcite standing out in relief. As the weathering progresses the veins control the break-up of the boulder into small polygonal pieces.” 

 This is what they look like when they break apart; like cells in a honey comb.

 I climbed up the hill at the back for a better view

and then treated myself to a yummy bowl of seafood chowder.  YUM ! ! !

I kept driving south on Highway # 1 until I reached Dunedin.  Beautiful scenery along the way.

 Rolling pastoral hills

 sometimes meandering into the mountains near the coast.

When I arrived in Dunedin I tried following the tiny map in the motel book with the one in the tourist brochure, but still ended up stopping to ask for directions.  It turned out I was still on the correct route to get to the motel I was aiming for. 

Just before getting to the motel I took a wrong turn and ended up on the lookout above St. Kilda beach.

I was lucky and got their last studio unit; they are cute little cottages that people use in the summer since St. Kilda (the section the motel is in) is right along the main beach area of Dunedin. I unloaded what I needed from the car and settled in for a 2-night stay.

It also had a seperate kitchenette.

OK, this has been bothering me for awhile now.  Who was St. Kilda to have all these towns named after him / her? “I finally had to look it up on the internet; here is what I found:   The origins of the name St. Kilda are shrouded in mystery - there certainly was no St. Kilda - the most likely derivation is because the Gaelic name for the main island Hirta was pronounced K-hilta by the islanders and it was mistranslated.”    How strange is that !

It had been a bright sunny day until I reached Dunedin.  Not only were there dark clouds overhead, but it POURED rain all evening and most of the night.