Took off from Dunedin in spiffy weather and travelled all day (350Km) through NZ spring green. Pretty much like this, most of the way.
View Larger Map
The Moeraki Boulders (pronounced "mo' rocky") started jillions of years ago as accretions of plant and seashells in a primeval sea, then were hidden in a mudstone cliff until they were eroded out. Now they're a tourist attraction.
There once were all sizes of them but any that could be practically carried away, have been.
Everybody takes their picture with the boulders. After a tour bus load of aussies left, we took our picture with them, too.
We stopped briefly in Oamaru. We'd stopped there on the way down to Dunedin in pouring rain, for a cup 'n a cake, but went right on, not knowing about its architecture. Oamaru is home to a quarry yielding a fine cream-colored limestone, and in the 1890s a local architect and local carvers went wild with the public buildings using this stone. Now the old structures are being cleaned and they are pretty.
Approaching Christchurch, Marian kept trying to take pictures of the snow-covered mountains just visible on the western horizon. And after getting the pics into the computer and looking closely, darned if it doesn't look as if she caught the tip of Aoraki.
That may be as close as we're going to get to it, either. The forecast for the central alps for the next few days isn't good.
No comments:
Post a Comment