So we just stopped for one night in the small town of Twizel, having a nice salmon dinner, and a pretty early night. The next morning we had a look at another Lord of the Rings film location (the site used for Pelennor), and stopped at a couple of hydro-electric power stations to marvel at the engineering (although the big one with a visitor's centre, Benmore, was closed for maintanance).
We also stopped at the cool clay cliffs, a natural rock formation eroded into towering pillars of sandstone and carved gullies and canyons, the elephant rocks (used in the movie Narnia apparently), and then on to Oamaru for a couple of nights.
So Oamaru is nice wee town, with a small harbour worth a stroll around. We stayed at the Top 10 campsite beside the lovely main gardens of the town (that had a proper croquet pitch that had the rules of the game and everything, so now I'm mad keen to try the game properly).
We also stopped at the cool clay cliffs, a natural rock formation eroded into towering pillars of sandstone and carved gullies and canyons, the elephant rocks (used in the movie Narnia apparently), and then on to Oamaru for a couple of nights.
So Oamaru is nice wee town, with a small harbour worth a stroll around. We stayed at the Top 10 campsite beside the lovely main gardens of the town (that had a proper croquet pitch that had the rules of the game and everything, so now I'm mad keen to try the game properly).
In the 'historic' district we popped into a mad, eclectic gallery run by the friendly owner guy and his artist wife. He was very chatty, but came across as a bit lonely and sad I thought (and his eyes were a quite red and blurry, and there was a faint smell of alcohol from him), but he was a cool 'arty' looking dude. Also in the town was a more formal gallery, that had a brilliantly scary work called something like 'The Cross of Christ', by some famous guy!
One of the days I hiked up and around Observation Hill just outside the town (Sarah just waited at the bottom of the hill in the van), which had great views of the sea, and was a lovely forested coastal walk.
The town also has a resident blue penguin colony, but it was way too pricey for admission to that, so we just drove down the road a few kilometres where some local person told us we could see them for free. After a bit of a wait (you never know what time exactly they will return from their day feeding out at sea), we were rewarded with a distant view of a couple of the cute little critters waddling ashore.
The town also has a resident blue penguin colony, but it was way too pricey for admission to that, so we just drove down the road a few kilometres where some local person told us we could see them for free. After a bit of a wait (you never know what time exactly they will return from their day feeding out at sea), we were rewarded with a distant view of a couple of the cute little critters waddling ashore.
So then it was off to Dunedin after a quick stop at the town's famous cheese factory, Whitestone Cheese, and of course to sample their wares.
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