Dunedin to Omarama Feb 14th

After a stormy thundery night, with heavy rain, this morning it has all blown over leaving a lovely clear blue sky and sunshine. We had booked a tour of the Cadbury factory first thing and it was great fun. There is practically nothing that isn’t done by machinery these days, and all the chocolate is tightly sealed in containers or pipes so they have to make a chocolate waterfall at the end of the tour, so you don’t feel disappointed. We were surprised how many strange flavours they make for the Australasian market, which we don’t ever see. We had to try a few… well what did you expect!

We set off along the coast from Dunedin, determined to see more of the sea, and perhaps some more seals and penguins and aiming for Moeraki to see another crazy geological phenomenon, the Moeraki Boulders ; huge round stone boulders on the edge of the sea. The journey was exciting, getting a bit lost and going down quite a lot of gravel tracks again, and the sight of the boulders on the beach was breath taking. The tide was coming in so some were getting slowly submerged as we watched and just appearing through the surf.

Equally impressive, in quite a different way was Oamaru, where they had access to limestone, and the buildings are beautifully grand and ornate, and still amazingly white. No industrial revolution to dirty it all. We also visited a fantastic museum, which emphasised man’s role in the surrounding area, social history and all really interesting and well presented.

Really crazy were the strange objects in the street outside the Art gallery, called Steam Punk, where a train and a couple of motor bikes were constructed from all sorts of odds and ends.

We then went inland, again driving through some stunning scenery including Lake Waitaki, Lake Aviemore and Lake Benmore. These were all a strange light blue colour as if a milk lorry had emptied its load into the water………… something to do with the melting glacier water. Some really good use was being made of all this water for hydroelectric power, creating some waterfalls and cascades that were beautiful in their own right. We were staying at Omarama, which only seemed to be in existence for a tourist pit stop. Our hotel had some individuals staying and 3 coach loads of Asians!
Photos here.