What a difference a day makes

We’ve made a point of trying different foods and flavours while we’ve been here.  This is one colour we won’t be trying again!

It rained most of the night, but by morning it was bright and sunny and the wind had died down.

We left Oamara heading for a lovely camp site at Waikouaiti via several places down the coast.  The first thing we noticed was the change in our surroundings.  Wooded hillsides had replaced the mountains and lakes of yesterday.  Although we were on the main road from the North to South of NZ, it was like driving a country road in the UK.

Our first stop was to see the Moeraki boulders, huge natural rock spheres on the beach at Moeraki.  This was disappointing; the tide was in, very few were visible and they didn’t look that impressive.  We were also unimpressed by the fact that the only way down to the beach at this point was via a walkway owned by the café and gift shop, who charge you to for the privilege.  We drove to Moeraki itself, but we couldn’t see anything from there.

We’d then planned to go to Katiki Point, to view the lighthouse and maybe the yellow-eyed penguins.  For some reason, we couldn’t find it on our satnav and there were no signs from the road, so we never made it.

Our third stop was Shag Point.  After taking a track down towards the beach, we found ourselves at the top of some cliffs with great views of the bay and an audience of furry seals and thousands of very vociferous birds of various designs.

Our last stop for the day was Palmerston, to see the Butterfly and Bird Haven, but we were again disappointed.  We walked the length of the road twice and failed to find it.  As it was getting close to lunchtime, we called in at a coffee shop and each ordered a “Big Brekkie”.  While there, we asked the waitress if she knew of the Butterfly Haven; she told us they’d closed down because there’d been some problem with the breeding programme.

So, much earlier than planned, we set off to find our campsite.  When we got there, we had our third disappointment of the day – it was horrible.  We decided to head for Dunedin instead and checked into the Leith Valley Holiday Park, which was more to our liking.

As it was still quite early, we parked up and caught a bus into the centre of town.  Dunedin, which is Gaelic for Edinburgh, was the largest city in NZ until fairly recently and is full of grand Victorian and Edwardian buildings.  It is noticeably more cosmopolitan than Christchurch, with all manner of foreign shops and restaurants in the centre.

After a quick look around we headed for the Speight’s Brewery tour.  While we learned nothing about brewing, the guide was quite entertaining and we finished in the tasting room.  So a much better afternoon than morning.