Moeraki, Oamaru to Timaru - 11th Feb

The town of Moeraki is famous for a stretch of sandy beach which has some huge boulders spread across it, rising out of the sand like huge marbles. We thought we better check it out before we left and we were glad we did. It was an amazing site and very strange how they had ended up there – they didn’t fit in with any of the surroundings! They were formed in the sea bed millions of years ago and every now and then another once falls out of the cliff face! Gav took some snaps and we headed off.

The next town we arrived at was Oamaru. Although small, it had a very interesting mix of eloquent large buildings and old run down factories. We had a walk around and discovered that some of the old factories had been turned into art galleries or market stalls selling some really amazing homely things – we wanted to buy loads of stuff but had to refrain as we couldn’t get it home. It gave us some inspiration though.

About 60 minutes north of Oamaru was Timaru – a bigger town with more shops and a lovely park called Caroline Bay – we had to take a look. Here the park stretched from the city centre to the beach and it contained a Botanical Rose Garden which was beautiful. 

After walking around for an hour we decided that we had enough of driving / being in the van so we headed to a supermarket to get some food and then to a nearby campsite. It was lovely to spend some time cooking in a proper kitchen and sit down and watch some trashy TV to relax our brain – Australian X Factor to be precise! (The group stayed and the blonde gaunt 15 year old lad got kicked out if you are interested!) We made an amazing stir fry and had cake for pudding which made us feel a lot better! While we were discussing what to do the next day we got chatting to a local hunter-man who said that we should visit a lovely place called Lake Tekapo, a few hours north... so that was the plan!