NZ Day 26. Moeraki Boulders and Edoras!

 
Waking to no rain at the DOC campsite at Glencoe in the Herbert Forest we found that there was actually a pretty river below the campsite.
On the road we backtracked to the Moeraki Boulders, strange spherical forms, from 3 to 6 ft in diameter, showing pentagonal fracture shapes on the surface and with the cracks filled with a yellow/orange mineral. There seemed to be a camera club of either Japanese or Chinese or Korean visitors since every view was blocked by tripods! We found one boulder ‘growing’ out of the cliff face! There are some very glossed-over ‘explanations’ of how these boulders form, but they are short on detail and very incomplete, eg. the Wikipedia entry.

The boulders litter the beach, but only along a specific stretch of ~1km

Some of the boulders have fractured, revealing the internal structure

Boulder being ‘extruded’ from the cliff!

The beach at Moeraki

Then up the road to Oamaru, a very small town but with with the larges number of listed buildings in New Zealand. The combination of a workable local limestone and an ambitious pair of architects resulted in some very European styles for many of the buildings on Thames Street, Tyne Street and Harbour Street.

Protected Buildings in Oamaru

Protected Buildings in Oamaru

Protected Buildings in Oamaru

Protected Buildings in Oamaru

Onwards to Timaru in steadily worsening weather and indecision about what to do. We decided to push-on with the scenic route to Christchurch to see how it went. Fortunately, the further inland we went, the better the weather looked in the distance and we reached the junction to the unsealed road to Pott’s Station in almost no rainfall at all. Then after a long drag on gravel road, much harsher than Canadian gravel roads, or maybe it was the firm suspension of the campervan, arrived at Clearwater lake fishing settlement and then onwards to Potts Station and Mt. Sunday, otherwise known by most of the Western world as ‘Edoras’.

This van goes anywhere!

Randi atop Edoras

The view from atop Edoras

View across Rohan!

It is now possible to follow the marked trail right to the summit, and this is what we did. WE met a Kiwi couple at the start who had a ‘Batch’ at Clearwater lake, but when they had left we were the only people there, and probably the only people for miles!
After hiking up and down we tried to stay at Pott’s Lodge, but couldn’t find anybody there so drove back to the campsite at Clearwater Lake where we found one other Jucy van. As I sit here now at 19:10 the rain is beating steadily down on the roof of our camper…