From Bluff to Dunedin

Catch-up; November 2019- We were still in Southland but about to depart for Otago.

On a beautiful Southland spring day I packed up a lunch and we headed from our base in Winton to Bluff for the day. We've visited Bluff several times in the past, usually with the family and once to Bluff Oyster Festival (now that was an experience and a half, a weather bomb hit us) but there were a couple of places I wanted to check out that we hadn't visited before. But first things first; the mandatory drive up to Lookout Point where as expected, the 360 degree views were spectacular.

Looking west over the old Ocean Beach Freezing Works, Flat Hill Wind Farm and on to Hump Ridge & the Cameron Mountains in Fiordland National Park.

Looking south to Rakiura/Stewart Island which is just 37km away across Foveaux Strait and from there on it's just open ocean until you hit Antarctica.

North-east across Bluff Harbour is the aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point...

and directly below the lookout is Bluff township.

And after a visit to the lookout, our next stop is Stirling Point of course. And even though I already have photos, I took some more of the sign post, the anchor chain sculpture and the sign for the Start/Finish of the Te Araroa Trail, the trail that we have criss-crossed many, many times during our travels from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South. 

One of the places I wanted to visit was Omaui, a tiny seaside settlement at the entrance to the New River Estuary, the estuary that has Invercargill city at it's head. Omaui is also opposite Sandy Point Domain and is 'infamous' because they once wanted to ban cats from the settlement which is surrounded by a reserve. 

Omaui is at the top centre, in the photo above, just below the white sand of Oreti Beach. David backed the ute up to the edge of the beach and we sat on the tail gate having lunch overlooking the ocean and watching families enjoying the sun near the entrance to the estuary.

From Omaui we headed back towards Invercargill before turning right and heading off across the Awarua Plains on a dead straight piece of road that went on and on until finally crossing the Awarua Estuary. Where are we going? Have the power lines given it away?

We were heading to the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter. Sadly not to visit though, just to the gates to say we've been there, done that....got the photo! The smelter is rarely opened to the public, the last time was back in 2011 to celebrate it's 40th birthday. Our Winton family were lucky enough to attend, taking one of the buses that toured the plant, including driving through the monster sized warehouse, the size of five rugby fields (from memory). 

And here's one last photo from Southland. They don't mince words down there, they tell it like it is (free chicken manure). Seen on the main road into Invercargill.

We said goodbye to Winton and the family in mid-November and headed east towards the coast; we had a very important event to attend in a few days. We made a pit-stop in Clinton on the way through, and across the road from where we stopped, I spied these scruffy little dogs in a window, jumping about & barking loudly. They were looking out for their owner who was seeing someone off in a nearby car. For the rest of the day the songs 'How much is that doggy in the window' did laps inside my head.

We stopped at Balclutha for the night, at the South Otago A&P Showgrounds CAP; it's $10 a night for NZMCA Members. The weather was cold and miserable.

The next day we moved onto the NZMCA park at Woodhaugh in Dunedin for the night. It was lovely to get to Dunedin early enough to be able to head out on the Otago Peninsula for a tiki-tour during the afternoon. 

Hoopers Inlet

Once again we're covering familiar ground, we headed to Portobello along the bottom road (taking double the time due to major road works) and then up and over to the south side of the peninsula, around Hoopers Inlet...

A new boat shed replaces one of the two iconic sheds that were
 destroyed in a storm a couple of years ago

...to the end of the road and Allans Beach.  A short track crosses farmland, passing through dunes...

...lined with yellow lupins filling the air with a divine perfume. 

The track ends on a beautiful ocean beach. But we're not here for the beach today.

Allans Beach is also a well known home to a number of sea lions and if you're lucky Hoiho/Yellow Eyed Penguins. Sea lions haul themselves out onto the beach to rest and relax, they laze about on the warm sand in between feeding expeditions back at sea or, if you're a male, chasing females or other males away. Females also arrive to give birth, they usually hide well up into the dunes and away from the beach and the marauding males.

Sure enough there's a male resting right where the track exits onto the beach. On one of my previous visits to Allans Beach there was a very large agitated female blocking the track to the beach and I had to fight my way over the dunes and through the marram grass to avoid her. This guy doesn't even open his eyes as we pass. 

Further down the beach I find a female (females are usually cream in colour) resting in the warm sand.

She opens an eye, closes it and continues on snoozing. In case you're wondering, I have my telephoto lens on and I'm at least 15 metres from her.

We carry on down the beach and we think we see another sea lion at the far end but decide to leave that one alone. We turn and head back to the track. A lot of tourists visit the local beaches to check for sea lions and often leave thinking there are none about. 

Can you see the female in the photo on the left below? She looks just like a piece of driftwood, same colour too (that tiny speck centre left, up near the dunes). You can sometimes locate where they are if you see the distinctive tracks they leave in the sand as they've waddled up the beach (and not always in a straight line from water to the dunes either).

From the beach we head home along the top road to avoid the roadworks, stopping to take in the view out over Hoopers Inlet to Allans Beach in the distance.

Then there's another stop further along when the east side of the peninsula and Otago Harbour comes into view before we head back to Woodhaugh and home. 

A Fairlie Cold Place- Part 2

Real-time

Contined on from Part 1

While at Fairlie we did a day trip to Timaru to visit, of all places, Super Cheap Auto & Briscoes. David needed a new heavier duty jack, he'd bent the head of the last one awhile ago and it had been a problem when we'd had the blow-out and we also needed a new electric heater, our old one had been dropped and made an annoying whirring noise and then it blew blue smoke (there's a theme going on here....)

After visiting the shops, we drove down to Caroline Bay, apparently the most popular beach in the South Island (it's lovely but I think there must have been some parochial voting going on). It looks nice & sunny in these photos but boy was it bitterly cold.  

And as if to rub salt into the wound, I heard a whole lot of noise coming from a group of people near the container wharf in the far corner of the bay.

The mid winter Polar Plunge was about to happen....brrrrr....

...and just as I zoomed in on the people the countdown started and then a roar went up to go as a small group of people clad in a varying array of costumes and swimsuits raced for the water. After a quick dunk under the water most exited it just as fast. Some very brave people indeed!

We did a loop on our way home, taking some of the back roads behind Pleasant Point looking for a couple of places of interest (as highlighted in one of my map books); Hanging Rock Bridge was a non event. But it wasn't until I got home that I realised it wasn't the bridge that was of interest it was the nearby 'Hanging Rock', a huge lump of limestone overhanging the riverbed (which of course I didn't see). Duh! 

But in my defence, the map book did say 'Bridge', if it had left that out I'd have looked further for the Hanging Rock.

I did love the sign that was nearby. Some wag has hung a rock (in it's own little string bag) off the road sign. 

The other place of interest was the Kakahu Kiln...

... a huge lime kiln that's sitting in the middle of farmland and bush out in the middle of nowhere. This kiln was built in 1876 and was used until about 1900. Lime from the surrounding area was burnt- using coal from the area too- in the kiln. The burnt lime was used for agriculture & in the building industry.

Click on the photo to read more about this fascinating industry and why it didn't last.

There is a 3 hour, 8km part-loop track up behind the kiln, it follows part of the old tramway which brought the limestone chip down to the kiln, passes Balancing Rock (they like naming their rocks around here) and finishes at the Pinnacle Lookout. I walked up the track to check the top of the kiln where I could see a small tree growing out of the centre, along with some long grass. I hope they clear the tree before it does any damage.

We decided the 20 minute Escarpment Walk just down the road would be far enough for us today.

We followed the sheep track across the paddock, dodging piles of poo as we went, to the escarpment where huge boulders are scattered like giant's marbles around the base.

Up close the large boulders are mushroom shaped and eroded around their base, apparently this happened thousands of years ago (and I thought it was the sheep). The area is of great spiritual significance to local Maori. I had a quick look for Maori paintings, similar to the ones we were shown at a secret site when we stayed at nearby Albury Station, but didn't find any. There could possibly be some up in the rocks and caves further up the slope but the ground was very boggy so I didn't explore further.

From Kakahu we continued on along the gravel road until we popped back out onto the main road not far north of Geraldine. And then it was a smooth ride home back along the highway with a quick stop at the viewpoint high above the Fairlie valley. The township is behind those trees, centre right.

Lake Opuha, a man-made irrigation reservoir is just 12km from Fairlie, it's very popular during the summer for water sports and fishing and there are also three freedom camping areas, one we stayed at the last time we visited this area (again in the middle of winter). We drove up to the dam face, we hadn't actually visited here the last time. The water was silky smooth.

Below the dam a narrow gorge channeled the water down to a small pond. We watched a car head down the narrow track over the top of the spillway and then diagonally down the face of the dam and along a dirt road to the pond, it returned soon afterwards. I wondered if there was a picnic, swimming area there. We didn't check it out.

We drove back around to the Bennetts Road boat ramp/camping & picnic area and had afternoon tea just as the sun was about to disappear behind Two Thumb Range.

While we were there two locals arrived and unloaded their jet skies. Our peace & tranquility were shattered as they blasted their way around the lake.

Several days later I drove the loop back out to Lake Opuha hoping to shoot some reflection photos in the late afternoon sun, and also find some rolling farmland before the sun went down. Some of you may recall my reflection photos from our last visit, here's one from the latest visit; pretty similar if you check that link. It's a great spot to visit.

On the way home I stopped on the road beside a newly sown paddock that I'd spotted while driving past with David a few days earlier. I loved the rolling landscape and the shadows cast by the setting sun. 

This one is of the farm buildings, how I would have loved to have actually got into the paddock and found a spot where the composition in both photos could have been better.

I did head around to a side road to see if I could get some better shots but unfortunately the sun had disappeared off the front paddock.  Time to head home...

...although I couldn't help stopping for one last photo at the lookout again, just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, we were due to leave Fairlie on Wednesday afternoon, after the last two tyres had arrived from the North Island and been fitted. Unfortunately there was a hiccup with the delivery and they weren't now going to arrive until Friday morning. One whole week from when we arrived in Fairlie.

Which wouldn't have been a problem had word not got to me that due to the severe cold temperatures and a few days of pea soup fog, a hoar frost was building up in Twizel. Darn! Darn! Double Darn!

Just 100km stood between me and my bucket list photo. For four winters over the last seven years I have hoped for a hoar frost, I've captured a few mini frosts but never the big one, the money shot; bright blue sky and white frosted trees dripping in icicles. They have happened but always where we've not been at the time. And because the roads are usually treacherous to drive during the frost you need to be Johnny-on-the spot to be in with a chance.

As we headed out late Friday morning past Mt Dobson (tyres arrived and fitted), I wondered if I was going to be in time.