After handing over my car in Christchurch and paying a visit to Gary I was ready to pick up life as a backpacker again. I decided to go south to Dunedin in the Otago district. Otago is sheep country, endless green hills and 10 times more sheep than human beings. When in the late 19th century steam powered refrigerators made it possible to not only ship the wool but also the meat to the mother country, where half the population was starving at the time, the Scottish farmers in Otago became so rich they didn't know what to do with all their money. So they filled Dunedin with majestically buildings and huge country houses to show off their wealth. Dunedin means Edinburgh in Gaelic and its Scottish heritage shows, the city has a more European feel than any other place in New-Zealand I've visited.
Dunedin is home to the oldest university in the country and normally it's a lively place full of young and vibrant people. But I visited on a rainy Sunday about 2 weeks after the school year ended. Dunedin was nearly a ghost town. I went to the gothic revival cathedral which looks nice, but because it's an Anglican church the inside is realy boring. You can say about Catholics what you want but they knew a thing or two about interior design. I also went to the impressive railway station. Inside there are porcelain tiles everywhere. After that it started to rain heavy and I went looking for inside entertainment. I ended up in the public art gallery. It's a nice little art museum and it also plays host to the New-Zealand film archive where you can view Kiwi-made films and documentaries for free. So I spend a few hours watching music documentaries. Turns out New-Zealand had quite a big punk scene.
Back in the hostel i started talking to a Dutch guy who lives in Neufchateau, where his parents run a camp site. At first we had a nice conversation but after a few beers we started talking politics. When he said: 'I think Geert Wilders is right' I nearly wept. He gave me a long speech about integration and how immigrants don't speak the language, don't work, don't pay taxes and only claim benefits. The usual right wing bullshit speech. We discussed the topic for over an hour and I learned that his parents don't speak French and that most of the jobs he has ever done were without paying taxes. I tried very hard not to laugh in his face. This guy is one of the very few right wing idiots I met in hostels around New-Zealand, sadly he is the 2nd one in a week. Summer season is coming and idiots are taking over.
After Dunedin I traveled an hour north to Hampden, a little village near the Mouraki Boulders. I stayed one night at the camp site in Hampden on my road trip and I liked it so much I wanted to go back and stay for a while. The camp site is basically a hostel with the exception that you have to bring your own bed. It has a fully equipped kitchen, a heated lounch and cleaner bathroom facilities than most hostels. So I relaxed in Hampden for 4 days and didn't do much. Every day I made a morning walk on the beach for a few hours until the tide came in, or the rain, whichever came first, I read 3 books during my stay in Hampden and I ate massive kiwi-style ice creams (hokey-pokey flavor, google it!)
The beaches of northern Otago are heaven if you like stones, they are full of weird rock formations that were embedded in the mudstone cliffs. When the cliffs eroded the rocks stayed behind. Most famous are the Mouraki boulders, some 50 perfectly round balls on the beach, some of them up to 2m in diameter. There used to be many hundreds of them but most of the boulders got souvenired over the years. But Mouraki boulders is only 50m of beach, the rest of it is far more interesting. Partly because there you don't have busloads of tourists around you but also because the rocks there are more divers. There are smaller boulders, broken boulders that show there crystallized insides and rocks that look like turtle shields. I spend hours on the beach and I love it deeply. I even got my favorit boulder by now.
Northern Otago is also a good place for marine wildlife spotting. I met a few fur seals on my morning walks and one evening I took a bike from the camp site and rode it to Kaitiki point to see the penguins come ashore. I was too late to see them come out of the water but I could still hear them in the bushes so I looked for them over there and I could see 2 of the little fellows walk to their nests.
Next stop was Oamaru, 40km north. I hitched a ride with a truck driver on his way to Christchurch. The guy was on the road from Monday until Friday, all over the south island and he loved his job. 'I get paid to do what you are paying for to do' he told me. I could only agree. I arrived in Oamaru during the Victorian heritage festival. Most of old Oamaru is build in Victorian architecture with the local limestone. And they take their heritage very serious, for 4 days the entire town goes nuts. Everybody dresses up in Victorian clothes and there are heaps of theme events around town. I went to a Victorian tea party in the public gardens and that's the most delightful oxymoron. People dressed up like it's 150 years ago walking around with digital cameras, calling friends on their cellphone and drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups.
What I like most about Oamaru is the local steampunk community. There are a few steampunk exhibitions and on various street corners are steampunk machines that actually work if you feed them a 2 dollar coin. In Oamaru steampunk artists give their creations reason of existing by writing a background story for every piece. That makes the exhibitions very interesting. You don't just see a steam powered gun but you see the stun gun that was used by a space travelling bounty hunter. Some of the background stories read like a scifi novel.
I liked Oamaru but I could only stay 1 day, because of all the Victorian madness all accommodation was booked full. I was lucky to find a bed for 1 night. So I spend the entire next day on the bus and got to Kaikoura. Of the coast of Kaikoura the sea floor drops rapidly to 1km deep and that pushes all the nutritious deep sea water up to the surface. The ocean near Kaikoura swarms with sea life and seals, dolphins and whales can be seen the year round, enjoying the buffet. Also humans where drawn to Kaikoura for the treasures of the sea. Maori tribes used Kaikoura as a food gathering station and Europeans started out as wailers but now they sail boat loads of tourist out to sea to watch whales or swim with dolphins.
Because of all the tourists the town looks like a beach resort. Pubs, seafood restaurants and hotels everywhere, there are more Germans than natives on the street and everything is a bit more expensive then in the rest of New-Zealand. What really annoys me is the price of crayfish (the rest of the world calls this animal lobster). They catch crayfish over there in the bay but they cost more than in Belgium. Ridiculous.
I did a very nice walk while I was in Kaikoura, along the peninsula. The walking path was high up on the cliffs but it was cold and windy up there so I abandoned it as soon as I could and went down to the ocean. By the water there wasn't a path but it was low tide (well, almost low tide) and I figured I would make it to the other side over the rocks. I didn't make good time, finding my own path, jumping on the rocks, but I saw some very nice things. A gannet colony nesting 5m from my feet and at least 50-60 fur seals sun bathing on the rocks. You can get pretty close to seals, they don't really care for you, unlike sea lions.
Dunedin
The beach and rocks of Hampden Bay
Victorian Oamaru
Victorian tea party
Steampunk in Oamaru
Kaikoura peninsula
Heaps of seals
Gannet colony
