Otago Museum

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 182012
 

2 days were well spent in Otago museum in Dunedin. The first was in the Discovery World and Tropical forest- hundreds of such beautiful butterflies in a hot and humid tropical miniature forest (they throw in turtles, some birds and a couple of fishes for the special effect:)). Philip looooved it. The Discovery World brings the child out in one trying out what science has to offer in hot air balloons, trick mirrors, air basketball, giant foot piano etc.

 

The Museum

Maori culture at best in the gallery ‘Tangata Whenua’- People of the land, southern lands, Pacific cultures, The Asian face of Islam in NZ, etc. Great exhibition.

 Posted by admin at 11:47

Lets go Albatross, Lets go!

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 172012
 

The boys dressed in their Alba shirts ready to see and pay tribute to the Royal Albatross of New Zealand’s mainland-at Tairoa Head in the Otago Peninsula. The only Albatrosses in the world nesting on a mainland, we were all pretty excited- which goes without saying that we booked a tour at the Center and got a custom made one (just the 3 of us). Arent those birds mighty! There were some still sitting on the eggs while the partners went hunting, the roles changing so. We saw 2 take off and soar into the sky.

Few facts: The oldest one recorded here (called Grandma) lived to be 61 years old. The young, once they learn to fly and take off, will not land on land for 5 years just spending the time soaring, fishing at sea. They mate for life, but there are sometimes divorces by mutual consent or death/ disappearance of a spouse. The young at 6-8 weeks weigh more than an adult. They have wingspan of up to or more than 3 meters.

Underneath the breading albatross lies the remains of an old fortress with some tunnels, look outs and cannons.

 Posted by admin at 11:18

Walking Sandymount track – Chasm and Lovers Leap

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 172012
 

Sandymount track takes one round affording the best views of Otago Peninsula. One walks to it from the car park on a road darkened by the tall trees that have grown to form a dark canopy making it really dark- and giving a Lord of the Rings feeling of the road in the forest (keep really calm and you could hear the trees planning something evil:)

The Chasm is a big chasm dropping several tens of meters and carved into the surrounding cliff. Lovers Leap is an arch letting in the sea inland like a bridge over a river. The sheep grazing around complement the setting. This is the New Zealand I dreamt about!

 Posted by admin at 11:13

Doctors point/ Mapoutahi heads beaches

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 152012
 

Of course Jan would not have missed this- and it was well worth the detour! 20 KM north of Dunedin, Mapoutahi Head is the ridge separating Parakanui and Blueskins Bays. The place features 3 evenly carved 1km long incredible white sandy beaches- one being Doctors Point. Doctors point (accessible only in low tide) has some really large coves carved in the cliff and and an arch cut into the ridge. We walked through it in awe of mother nature.

We walked up to Pa point where one can view the whole area, ridges beaches and all in a real picturesque setting. Lovely.

 Posted by admin at 09:28

Shag Point

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 142012
 

As Scott Cook (NZ Frenzy) says, at Shag point, if you see the vans from Wicked campers are a rockin’ don’t go a knockin’ as the wind is just strong at shag point:)

We did not get to see the famous dinosaur eggs as the tide was already high, but we did get to see some frolicki’ fur seals- and almost got blown away by the wind!!! and it follows that we did not get to wait to see the penguins come home…

 Posted by admin at 10:52

Moeraki Boulders

 Otago  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Moeraki (Hampden) beach hosts the world famous Moeraki boulders and this we visited (after a night and a rainy day which was spent in the van at a very nice camping ground in Hampden). Previously run don, the place is no being managed by a Swiss couple ho turned it into the best camping ground we have been to so far).

On the next morning the weather was much better so we took a walk along the beautiful beach. The funny thing about the boulders is that they are spread out over about 100 meters of beach (visited only at low tide) and that is where all the tourists are. The rest of the 8 km beach you are almost untramped upon. We joined the boulder watching crowed for a while. Those are truly weird rocks, like stone turtles or giant dinosaur eggs.

 Posted by admin at 10:01

Duntroon

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Jan 122012
 

Duntroon in the seat of the collection of fossils in the … valley. After spending a night in a deserted park, we started our journey back in time at the Duntroon Vanished World Center’s exhibition. John, the enthusiastic guy there gave us quite a detailed history of the findings (including a shark-toothed dolphin’s skull dated some …years) and the basic geology of NZ. It seems that every major city in NZ is built on most unstable geological areas! We decided for 2 points of interest to visit out of a possible 16, Earthquake and Elephant rocks.

Earthquake and Elephant rocks
The formation of rocks at Earthquake are not from an earthquake as the name may suggest. They just look like there was a huge faultline which is akin to that from an earthquake. One part of the rock bed subsided dropping about 20m. The whole valley used to be the sea bed many million years ago, and the sea subsided after which there were the forces around the Pacific ring of fire that pushed the rock mass up to creat some of the land including the Alps.

Elephant rocks, the setting for the Chronicles of Narnia movie as we heard, were indeed elephant- not only in size but in shape. We ceased to be adults and donned our playful hats climbing all we could climb. What fun!

 Posted by admin at 10:18

Oamaru

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 112012
 

The small harbour city Oamaru beckoned to us to stay for two rather interesting days. You can see Oamaru’s glorious past in the Victorian limestone buildings. Once an important harbour (the first one to send refrigerated meat back to England in 1880), it went through some decades of decay. Only in the recent past has the city come to life again with old warehouses being turned into restaurants and concert venues. The main reason is a boom in tourism seen through by the two penguin colonies right next to the harbour.

Penguins
We started our penguin tour at Friendly Bay to see the Yellow eyed penguins coming to the shore, walking over the beach to their nests in the bushes beside the beach. The beach is closed after 3 am so the penguins do not get disturbed by any human traffic as they come back at dusk after a day of fishing. Only from a far can one see a penguin pop up from the weaves, than sitting at the beach to dry their wings and to socialize and disappering in the bushes. We saw about 5 penguins here.

After this we moved on to the Harbour to see the Blue Penguins- the world’s smallest-standing at a maximum of 30 cm! In a day fishing, they travel upto 10kms into the sea, swim about 40kms and dive upto 800 times! The warning was to not dare to take pictures because if accidentaly a flash pops, the penguins would get disoriented, turn around and walk straight back into the sea- a sure way of losing their rythm and dying. The sight of the penguins coming ‘home’ was incredible. One saw a line of bobbing black heads swimming really fast with each wave, and the final wave washing them on the rocks ashore. The sea seems so rough and they seem (and are) so small… They come back after fishing in groups called Rafts. Some rafts have upto 100 or more penguins. They waddle and clamber up the rocks, shaking their cute little tails, preening themselves, socializing, before heading for their nests. We saw four rafts of different sizes- about 80-90 penguins in total. A seal was lying on their usual way home and this disoriented them a bit, but being that it is not a predator (sea lions are though!), they made their way safe home. It was a quite a sight!

Omaru as Steampunk HQ
The pictures say it all, apart from the workshop that held quite some display of some incredible machinery and of course even more weird operators of these machinery.

 Posted by admin at 11:46

Back to Timaru

 Canterbury  No Responses »
Jan 092012
 

The search for a campervan had brought us to Timaru some weeks ago. And again the campervan was the reason to go yet again to Timaru to get the roof fixed. We came across Bruce, an old guy who has been reparing Campers for decades. He was not the cheapest option (and not the fastest either). But he seemed most reliable. Since he fixed it we did not have any water in the van – But we have not had serious rain since than either.

We attended the last day of a two week Timaru Carnival, took part in the fruit and vegetable lottery (and did not win) and some Hot Dogs (We booked it more under cultural experience than culiniary expereince.)

With the setting sun over the Caroline Bay and the harbor in the background it was much more of a vacation feeling than our last visit.

 Posted by admin at 11:40

Maori Rock Art

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 082012
 

One of the hidden treasures of Maori rock art (fabulous!) is in the lands of the owner of a vineyard. It happens that a number of New Zealands treasures are so. We kept on thinking that had it been Kenya or Germany, they would have been taken on by the government either citing national history or national security:)

Well, we went, got a sort of map from the owner, and made our way to such incredible rock art. Later, we had a coffee at the cafe and a great mud cake- the owner was really friendly. We bought a great wine which accompanied our oh-so-lecker salmon later that night at Timaru.

 

 Posted by admin at 11:27
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