Kiyomi and Ren's Excellent Adventures

December 7 & 8 - We've made our way a little ways along the eastern coast to the university town of Dunedin. Leaving Curio Bay relatively early by our standards, we headed out through narrow, twisty roads through that can best be described as Shire land. Rolling greed, with stubby bushes and the occasional deep canyon plunging from the road side. I'm not sure there is a truely straight road anywhere on the South Island.

The views were lovely, but I think it's fair to say that our awe-meters have been overloaded by the rugged beauty of the West Coast and the wow-factor of Milford Sound. There has been a noticeable reduction in shutter clicks, despite the fact that the scenery is still quite stunning.

Having left early enough, we took a a slight detour (14 kms up a gravel road) to see Nugget Point - a short trek up to a lighthouse viewpoint. Just as we arrived at the junction fro Kaka Point (unfortunate name), we saw a couple girls hitchhiking their way up to Nugget, so we offered them a ride. Turns out they were from New York (Brooklyn and upstate) and are studying at Cornell. They're in NZ on an exchange for a semester and have spent the last couple weeks cyclying through the south part of the South Island. We were duely impressed. They say contentedly on the a back listening to Kiyomi chattering to them about having found dead animals on the beach, skiing back in Canada, being in grade 1 and any number of other things, all with the Wizard of Oz as background music of course. I think Kiyomi was thrilled to have someone other to talk to than us, and we were kind of happy with the temporary babysitting.

The point itself was a precipitous drop into swirling sea, with large rock nuggets (which were actually massive rock islands of several stories high) tossed near the shore line like jacks. The sky was a pale grey overcase, making the seas a bluey-grey. While you could easily make out where sky and sea met, it appeared as if the lines were perfectly blended on a chosen palette.

Lunch was at the rather Scottish sounding town of Balclutha. Much of Southland, as this part of the Island is calle, is heavily Scottish influenced. Pulling into Dunedin was a bit of a shock as the drive from Balclutha was the first time we experienced any real traffic, including quite a few trucks. Coming into Dunedin was the first time since we arrived that we experienced an expressway. The town itself is built on a hill going down to the sea and has a downtown built around the Octogon. Coming into town actually initialy felt like arriving in any North American city wit wide streets lined with a variety of businesses, including take-aways and any number of quasi-industrial feeling buildings. But, as you get closer to the center, it's like the city dips back in time to a center with Victorian architecture and a campus feel.

We arrived at the camp park in the late afternoon and decided to give the kids a bit of a break from touring about. There was a heated (barely) indoor pool and playground, so we took them swimming, got cleaned up and made dinner in the campground kitchen. Here we ran into our Belgian friend (we had initially met him up in the kitchen at the Milford Lodge). He's a landscape gardner from the Southern (Dutch) part of Belgium and is travelling for 7 1/2 weeks all on his own in a make-shift converted van. He looked hungry, so we invited him to join us and the Kiyomi enjoyed grilling him about his age and why he was all by himself. Actually, I would say that on this trip, she has gotten a lot more comfortable chatting with grown-ups. Including that evening chatting with a Danish lady who we met and telling her all about the gloworms and how it is cold getting out of the pool and so we all went to the baby bathroom (there was a bathroom with a small tub for families) and how daddy got in the tub with her and Ren because he was cold, and there wasn't enough room... (anyway it went on for awhile, so you get the picture).

It turned out that lady had a little girl (5 1/2 years) who came to the campervan the next morning to see if Kiyomi wanted to play, and boy did she! They become fast friends in minutes and were running around the playground hand in hand. Her name was Anna Cicilia and Kiyomi even invited her to breakfast where she happily sat with Ren and Kiyomi eating away and chatting (even though none of us had a clue what she was saying).

After saying goodbye to Anna, we headed for the Otago Peninsula. Dunedin actually sits on the knuckle of this peninsula which sneaks out into the ocean. This, more than any other part of the country, made be think of the Shire, with cascading greens and browns, as well as sheep. It should be said however every part of this country is dotted with sheep. There has not been a single day where we haven't passed fields of grassing sheep. I haven't looked it up, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were more sheep than people on this Island.

Our first stop was the University of Otago marine research center in the small tiny port of Portabello which doubles as a small boutique aquarium. It wasn't particularly large, but it had one of the best touch pools I've ever seen and the kids spent almost an hour exploring the pool, touching the sea creatures and checking off sea creature sigthings on their little brochure. After a brief lunch in Portabello (and a relatively brief Ren meltdown), we headed for a short hike that provided one of the best views on the peninsula (though it did also make for a very challenging sheep dung obstacle course). The 3 km hike off Highcliff Rd provided a couple of view points with dramatic drops into a precipitous sea. Ren slept in the carrier while Kiyomi dodge the sheep doo, loudly proclaiming that we should not be hking anymore in a sheep toilet!

Dinner was at an acutal grown-up restaurant along the beach at St Kilda beach in Dunedin called Esplanade (no the irony didn't escape me that I work in a place nik-named l'Esplanade). I tried fresh NZ muscles and they were yummy - much larger and more flavourful than what I'm used to. It turns out this beach is a rather busy surfing spot (despite the frigid temperatures), so we were treated to a bit of a local scene with surfers playing in the water and a bit of a gathering along the boardwalk of locals who seemed to be a part of the scene.

Things to note: As a Canadian, it's hard to get my mind around the notion that the further south you go, the cooler the climate and it's been a lot colder here than I expected it would be. Probably goes down to below 10 every night. I seem to be one of the only people around who finds it frigid though as most people are walking around in spring clothing. Some I note, however, are wearing puffy jackets over top of their shorts though, so I can't be that out of it.