Saturday 13 April
It was a very wet drive through to Oamaru and then on to the Waitaki Valley and west up the valley to Duntroon so I could visit the fossil centre. I wanted to see the local Maori Rock Art as well as go to the locality labelled “Earthquakes” on the map.
The Vanished World Centre at Duntroon was crowded with displays of 20 to 30 million year old marine fossil specimens of dolphins, penguins and whales. There are 9 sites in the valley leading to Danseys Pass that comprise the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark, NZs first UNESCO Global Geopark.
One of the most exciting finds over the years has been the fossilised bones of a giant penguin.
However, although the rain had stopped when I headed up the Waitaki Valley it had really set in again as I exited the Centre, so I gave away the plan to visit the fossil sites and Rock Art and returned to Oamaru to check in at Top 10 for the Saturday and Sunday nights. Sunday and Monday weather forecasts are good so I will return to Duntroon on one of those days and do the walks in the dry.
Sunday 14 April
My return visit to Duntroon on Sunday was to take the drive around the Whitestone Geopark circuit taking in Maori Rock Art and limestone formations. The Takiroa Rock Art site I visited was one of two in the Duntroon area, and included display boards with drawings of the art work behind the boards on the limestone cliff below a sheltering overhang. There were three groups of drawings, one of which had only two small items remaining as most of the work had been cut out of the cliff in the early 1900s and distributed to museums around the country. However in 1852 sketches were made of the full set of cliff drawings, and then a photo record was made in 1896, so the display boards replicated the early information. Vandals had also carved their initials into the walls of the shelter, now fully protected by a wire mesh fence.
Access to the art work, with visitors peering through the mesh fence.
This is believed to represent a taniwha interacting with another creature. The Takiroa Rock art site is one of some 20 locations where rock art has been recorded in the Waitaki Valley. There are only three sites remaining today. Farming development destroyed some and others were submerged in the hydro lakes at Waitaki and Benmore.
The Whitestone Geopark circuit started as a rural gravel road, first to a locality called “Earthquakes” by early settlers (as marked on the map} where a huge junk of cliff had broken off and slid downslope as though it had been displaced by an earthquake.
Subsequent geological investigation established it was an earth/slope failure (block slide) that caused the huge piece of cliff to break off. The wire cage on the bottom right of the photo protects in-situ fossilised bone pieces of a baleen whale embedded in limestone as exposed by an archaeological dig.
The Geopark circuit included other fossil sites as well as “The Valley of the Whales” where three sets of whale remains were found along the face of a limestone cliff. Then back towards Duntroon were the “Elephant Rocks” limestone formations in a farmer’s field.
This is part of the Elephant Rock formations which spread over 200m through farmland. The formations were used as a filming location in the first Chronicles of Narnia movie in 2005.
And then it was time for lunch.
The café was very busy as the A2O (Alps to Ocean) cycle trail passes through Duntroon on the way from Mt Cook to Oamaru.
End of the cycle trail at Oamaru Harbourside.
Monday15 April
This day was spent in the Historic Precinct at Oamaru, the highlight being a visit to the Steampunk HQ at the entrance to the area. The displays are meant to represent an alternate futuristic version of 19th century Victorian England – it was a mix of weird and wonderful.
Large machines like this locomotive were on display in the outdoor section, while indoors all sorts of metal sculptures inhabited dark places. And, then there was light——
“The Portal” is a light machine that transports you to alternate realities as a space-time gateway (!!!).
Another outdoor wonder.
Tuesday 16 April
After a night freedom camping at All Day Bay in Kakanui I traveled out to join the main road south at John Turnbull Thomson’s arch bridge over the Kakanui River.
This bridge on State Highway 1, completed in 1874, was featured in my Beacons TV programme. Thomson was not only a brilliant engineer, he was also a well-known painter of watercolours.
The Moeraki Boulders, my next destination heading south, have over recent years become part buried in sand accretion to the beach.
The boulders today.
One of the earliest photos of the boulders (held by Auckland City library).
This week’s bird is a blackbird that fussed around at my feet picking at pieces of kelp on the beach as I was viewing the Moeraki Boulders.
At Moeraki Village, very quiet at 8:30am, I took Lighthouse Road out to Katiki Point Historic Reserve with its seal population on both shoreline rocks and grassy hillsides.
Moeraki Village Harbour, a crayfishing port.
Katiki Point lighthouse with the entrance to the Historic Reserve and wildlife viewing walkway at the edge of the parking area.
Some seals preferred resting on the rocks.
Other seals preferred a grassy resting place. On the way south I took the coastal route via Karitane and Seacliff, with a stop for lunch at the Karitane estuary after viewing the Old man and Old Woman rock pillars.
Old Woman and Old man at Karitane Beach.
As I neared Dunedin Tuesday afternoon rain set in and continued all the way to Balclutha where I stayed overnight in the Holiday Park ready to head for the Catlins Wednesday morning.
Wednesday 17 April
At the entrance to the Catlins on Wednesday was Nugget Point Lighthouse (built 1870). It is a tourist drawcard where I came across several Chinese families (with school age children, toddlers, and baby in a pushchair) on the walk in from the carpark. It was a busy place on a fine day, with the attraction being the Nuggets.
The Nuggets from the viewing deck at the foot of the lighthouse. They were named by Captain Cook who thought the formation looked like gold nuggets.
Near Owaka was Tunnel Hill, a remnant of the railway from Balclutha to the central Catlins forest areas. The railway operated from1879 to 1971 serving sawmills and farmland as the Catlins transitioned from forestry to sheep and cattle raising.
Although the Catlins Railway is not the most southern railway in the world, this tunnel is the southernmost rail tunnel in the world. It was busy on Wednesday with three groups of travellers following me through.
Stonehigh Cutting on the railway was carved out of solid rock by workers using explosives, picks and shovels and “dobbins” (horse drawn wagons on rails).
Thursday 18 April
After visiting the excellent Owaka Museum, Thursday was waterfall and wetlands day, the most beautiful being Purakaunui Falls.
Owaka – “place of the canoe”. This art work was outside the museum.
Purakaunui three step falls is a calendar favourite.
The Tautuku Estuary wetland boardwalk passes through a rare fern bird habitat. This red-brown sparrow sized bird prefers to live in the saltmarsh rather than fly around in the forest. This is my second visit to this spot, the first being with Lexie, and have never seen the fern bird.
After freedom camping at Owaka Wednesday night, Thursday night I treated myself to the luxury of the Whistling Frog resort camping area and restaurant.
Friday 19 April
Friday it started to rain as I left the Whistling Frog and became very wet as I took the Coastal Route through Curio Bay to Fortrose and then on to Invercargill. The only way to take photos was to shoot from inside the cab of the motorhome with the window down – no way could I step outside. However I did get some useful shots.
Curio Bay in pouring rain with the petrified forest foreshore shelf on the right.
It was wild at the Bay with heavy surf driven by a strong wind.
The last visit before heading for Invercargill was Waipapa Point where in 2002 Lexie and I parked the motorhome for the night on a concrete pad right at the foot of the lighthouse. That afternoon a large seal lumbered up off the beach into the grass alongside the motorhome and slept beside us. There is no longer vehicle access to the lighthouse itself, as I have found all over the country DoC has sealed off tracks and roadways into special locations to make people park and walk in
The Waipapa lighthouse viewed in the rain across the sand dunes from the Doc carpark area.
I arrived Invercargill early afternoon and my neice Jan Mc Bain and eldest daughter Talitha came round to the Camping Park and visited me in the van from 3pm till 5:45.
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