Sorry for the lack of posts again recently, I don't do much until the weekend! Two of the nurses and I arranged to hire a car from the Hotel for the weekend. It cost $100/day, plus fuel, which in the end came to $97 each.
I went to pick up the car at 9:00 from the Hotel with Christine. There was an age limit of 25 and you had to have an NZ driving licence. They probably wouldn’t have been too bothered but it was good to have Christine with me anyway.
We went down the South coast road to a spot, through someones land (who we gained permission from). We tried to catch some Paua/fish but didn’t catch anything or get any bites. There were huge waves down there, so it probably would have been great for surfing, but I wouldn’t want to swim with the great white sharks!
Next stop was up at Henga Lodge, as we had arranged for the lady up there to take us out at 13:00. We went down their land to the lagoon, to visit the moriori cave carvings. Lorraine was a great tour guide, but she was quite scary and I wouldn’t say no to her. She was a bit of a scaremongerer, saying how dangerous the (randomly appearing) peat holes and quick sand was. It was probablt true to a certain extent, but she was a bit OTT. She also took us along the lagoon to see a weird tree, growing in to the cliff.
After that we went up the road to Blind Jim’s to find some fossilised sharks teeth. The lagoon was quite smelly, as the water is quite stagnant. Apparently they open the lagoon every few years, when it gets too smelly. Christine found two sharks teeth and Erin found one. We were there for about an hour and a half and I didn’t manage to find even one sharks tooth.
In the evening we went up towards Kaingaroa and saw the moriori tree carvings. They were pretty cool, but the trees are apparently dying and people have desicrated a few. The Moriori trust have managed to digitally map and make 3D images of the trees.
We then went back to the Kaingaroa settlement, which is relatively small. The school there has 8 children! We went for a beer at the social club there, although it wasn’t open when we arrived. We had about 40 mins to kill, so we tried some fishing off the Wharf. Erin and I both had bites and could see blue cod, but they wouldn’t get on my hook! We went back to the club for a drink and it was a lovely evening. We each had a few beers on the terrace, looking over the sea and spoke to some chaps from the mainland. Also there was a BBQ laid on for everyone, there was some lovely food and I had some perfectly cooked steak. I'm told we were quite lucky, as apparently the club is usually only open for an hour! We ended up back home about 23:30, after an hours drive home.
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| This is the lagoon and some cliffs down near the Moriori cave carvings. I like the mirror image of the cliffs in the lagoon's water. |
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| This was just a random tree at the Moriori tree carvings. It wasn't one that was carved and this picture is upside down. We all just thought it looked like a bum, legs and tail! |
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| This is one of a few Poppy's that were growing in the sea shells on the shore of the Lagoon. |
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| Some of the carvings in the Cave, down near Henga. Most of the carvings in this picture are seals, as you can probably make out. |
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| Weird tree that was growing in to the cliff, with a nice view of the Lagoon by its side. |
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| Probably the best picture I have of the Moriori tree carvings and also the clearest carving there. |
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| Another random picture taken at the Moriori tree carvings that I just thought was cool. |
That's all from Saturday, and hopefully the blog post for Sunday's adventure will be up shortly!
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