Moeraki Day Trip

Man, today was a busy day! We went all across the coast north of Dunedin today. We made a few stops some of which were just scenic picture moments and some were beaches or other cool little places.

Our first stop of the day was to Aramoana Park which is at the mouth of the Dunedin Harbour. We walked out onto this old wharf where ships used to dock before some of the other facilities father down the harbour were built. I got to see my first New Zealand fur seal, and a lot of sea birds.

Abandoned wharf

Look at that seal, not a care in the world.

The second stop was Port Chalmers which is the first city north on Dunedin on Highway 1. This is where the cruise ships stop on their way around the south island and is a very quaint little town. We got fish and chips from a local shop and took them up the hillside to a scenic lookout to eat them. We happened to sit next to a memorial to an antarctic explorer named Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Ella told me the story of his expedition. Captain Scott and his men traveled down to the Antarctic to attempt to be the first people to reach the South Pole, but upon his arrival a Norwegian captain had already made it there and had left a note bragging about his achievement to Scott. On the return trip Scott and his men perished. Read his last message, it is very moving.

"Captain Scott's last message: I do not regret this journey, which has shown us that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with great fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks; we knew we took them. Things have come out against us , and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of providence, determined still to do our best to the last. Had we lived, I should have had a talk to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions. We have been willing to give our lives to this enterprise."

Our third stop was Long Beach. This is a very famous beach on the pacific ocean and it has caves that people camp in. While we were there we saw a lot of rock climbers and some ocean kayakers trying to "surf" with their boats.

Stop number four was Huriawa park which is a Maori site that is "Tapu". Tapu in Maori means "sacred" and they use the term to classify special natural sites within their territories. I wrote about a spring in my earlier post about the Hangi and that was also a tapu site. Anyway, this place is a small hilly peninsula that juts out into the ocean. It is considered tapu because a Maori legend about forbidden lovers occured there. I thought it was really cool because the plant life was decidedly different on this small piece of land than anywhere else. It was like a highland prairie or something. Pretty cool.

Next we visited Katiki Point which is an animal reserve for the endangered Yellow-Eyed Penguin. This one is for you, Mom. We saw maybe seven penguins, three adolescents and four adults. It was funny to see them walk because they look really depressed as they shuffle uphill.

These were sleeping together.

This guy gave me a stink eye as he walked up the hill.

Our last visit was to the Moeraki Boulders. These are almost perfectly spherical boulders located on a beach about 65 kilometers north of Dunedin. No one knows for sure how they got there or how they were made.

Weird, eh?