Tuesday, 6 October 2025
I woke this morning before the alarm. Time is a bit confusing at the moment because now our body clocks have been displaced by another two hours with changing to NZ Daylight Savings Time. Anyhow, the clock on my iPhone said it was just after 7.00am so that must be right … whatever my mind and body might feel.
After some fruit and muesli for breakfast we re-packed the car and drove along the waterfront for a quick look around Arokoa in the daylight. We managed to make it all the way to the lighthouse for some photos and then ventured up the hill to the Anglican Cemetery.
Driving back along the waterfront we found the pharmacy and headed in to buy antihistamines. Ahem, thinking we were leaving the allergy and asthma capital of the world behind us, we didn’t pack any hayfever tablets. However, with gorse and broom running rampant here – and in full bloom to boot – we need antihistamines!! Luckily they have shops over here, ha, ha.
We parked beside the war memorial so that Bernie could take a photo of the post office … and then the rain started. Boo! But for this change in the weather we probably would have looked around Akaroa a bit more to admire its lovely wooden buildings but, with the turn in the weather, we decided to set the SatNav for Timaru and hope for better weather inland.
Syri stuck with State Highway 75 for the return journey back over the hill and alongside Lake Forsyth. If it had been up to me to navigate, I would have had us continue to Tai Tapu before striking across to the Main South Road (State Highway 1). However, Syri took us onto the roads less travelled at Motukarara. Our route was very … agricultural. We have never seen dairy cows so thick on the ground and we grew up in Gippsland! So many cows in the paddocks but then, they were knee deep in lush, green grass so there was plenty of food for them. We also saw lots of sheep and a ridiculous number of water tractors to irrigate the fields in this area. Who knew they need to irrigate in NZ??!!
After zig zagging our way through all of this agriculture, we eventually turned left onto State Highway 1 at Selwyn. Looking ahead on the atlas I said to Bernie, Ooh, we are going to be crossing NZ’s longest bridge shortly. We were both quite excited and anticipating a sweeping, elegant structure crossing a magnificent river. When we arrived at the Rakaia River Bridge we were … underwhelmed. The bridge is purely functional and not at all beautiful, which was very disappointing.
Arriving in Rakaia, we stopped at the Big Salmon and leant that the Rakaia River is a braided river. This means that it is made up of multiple, interconnected channels that separate and rejoin, forming a network of islands called braid bars. This explained why we didn’t cross a magnificent river while travelling across NZ’s longest bridge. It was more like crossing lots of little rivers. No doubt when the river is in flood it is much more exciting??
We continued through Ashburton and Temuka before arriving in Timaru for lunch. Looking for somewhere to eat we ended up near Timaru Station where we saw the sign on the Station Cafe. We found a Park & Pay nearby and, if we had had a one dollar coin we could have paid for our parking and gone to have lunch. However, we didn’t have a single NZ coin on us so … Bernie attempted to download the app to pay for parking. Managed to download the wrong app. Attempted to download the app again. With the app now on the phone we just had to work out the name of the parking area we were in. Finally saw signs that told us where we were and the parking fee was paid. And that took ten minutes instead of 30 seconds!! Parking apps are terrible but we have it downloaded now and will probably have need of it again in the next few weeks.
After lunch we continued south. I slept A LOT! I could not keep my eyes open today. My sleeping in the car is legendary but I have been really, really sleepy today, even by my standards. I’m blaming it on jet lag combined with the change to Daylight Savings Time! I mean, that is like a double whammy to my body clock so OF COURSE I am sleepy.
Mid-afternoon we stopped in Oamaru, also known as The Whitestone City. With limestone discovered soon after its settlement in 1853, many of its buildings were built in limestone using the classic forms of architecture popular in the late 19th century. We took a stroll around the beautiful buildings that are concentrated towards the northern end of the town.
While we were in Thames Street, we popped into the Information Centre and found out more about the Little (Blue) Penguin Colony. We had thought we would drive back to see the penguins in the morning but we were told that they would be best viewed today at 8.00pm, when they are returning at dusk. If we visit in the morning there will be ‘some’ penguins in a holding pen that can be viewed. Oh, no, we don’t want to see them in a holding pen, we want to see them doing their wild penguin thing. So, we decided we could drive back up to Oamaru for dinner and then see the penguins coming in at 8.00pm.
Onwards to Moeraki, where Bernie wants to photograph the boulders at low tide in the morning and then walk out to the lighthouse. Fortunately, low tide is at 10.00am tomorrow, so that was looking pretty reasonable. As we drove down the coast I mentioned to Bernie that the atlas notes that there is the Blue Penguin Colony in Oamaru AND a Yellow Eyed Penguin Colony. Although I said that it looked like the yellow eyed penguins are not IN Oamaru but at Cape Wanbrow nearby. Hmmn, are they accessible or not? We’ve never heard of this species before and we have little penguins in Oz.
We arrived in Moeraki and proceeded to the Moeraki Village Holiday Park. Tcht, in the office they had a board with all the tide times listed AND a notice about the best times to see yellow eyed penguins near the lighthouse. So, Bernie talked himself out of driving back to Oamaru to see the little penguins tonight and then talked himself back into it. I didn’t mind either way so was leaving it to Bernie to decide about driving back down the coast in the dark. By the time we had unloaded the car it had been decided that we should get up early in the morning to walk out to the lighthouse and (fingers crossed) see some yellow eyed penguins and then head to the Moeraki Boulders around 10.00am for the low tide. There goes that reasonable start in the morning!
With that being decided, there was only one option for dinner tonight, the Moeraki Tavern. We wandered down about 6.00pm and went fishy again tonight with a fisherman’s basket each. After dinner we set out on the Millennial Trail and clambered up the hill to watch the sunset. After the amazing sunsets we witnessed in Africa it was a bit uninspiring BUT we saw some fur seals hauled out on the rocks below the bluff so that made up for it because we weren’t expecting any wildlife.
After walking back to our room we found we had managed half an hour of exercise for the day. Yay.
Steps: 11,620 (7.56kms)
