The landscape as we drove south of Christchurch was agricultural and relatively flat plains. It was very dry, but many of the fields were being irrigated. In addition to some crops and vineyards, there were lots of pastureland for cows and sheep. We noticed some huge hedges that must serve as windbreaks around some fields. The hedges were very manicured and must have been 30 feet tall or more and so thick you couldn’t see through them.
Our first stop was Oamaru, a smallish town on the east coast. It is famous for two things: Steampunk and penguins. Steampunk is a mash-up of Victorian-era style with sci-fi fantasy, think Willy Wonka. There were several steampunk style art, sculptures and stores in town. Two colonies of penguins lived on the nearby coast: kororā (little blue penguins, the world’s smallest) and hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins, the world’s rarest penguins). Seeing them requires being at the right place at the right time, as you can spot them returning to land at sunset after being gone at sea to fish all day. We were not there at the right time, but there will be more opportunities for us to see them in the future. We did head out to a coastal lookout anyway, and spotted a few seals in the distance. The coastal view was pretty amazing.
We camped a bit further south in Hampden near Moeraki Beach. This beach is famous for a geological oddity: large round boulders buried in the sand. The large boulders were formed 60 million years ago starting as a small pebble upon which mud and lime slowly built up to turn into these calcite stones. We walked along the beach the next morning to view them at low tide. You can only see the top of most of the boulders as the sand has built up around them. Sophie thought the smallest ones looked like crinkle cookies. There were a few lodged in the cliff edge that better demonstrated their round shape.
After our nice walk on the beach, we had a quick lunch and hit the road to our next stop to the south: the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin.
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