We left Mt. Cook bound for our first Lord of the Rings tour. Twizel was the New Zealand township where most of the Gondor scenes were filmed. All of the major battles in the Return of the King featured Twizel in some way. It was really cool being on the same soil as the cast and crew. Being able to play fight with replica swords and costumes was pretty sweet too. I’m sure we all looked like we were ‘special’ but screw it, I had fun. Our tour guide showed us around the sites for 2 hours, she was full of all sorts of useless film trivia but it was interesting. The main sites she showed us were from and around the final battle in Return of the King but there was stuff from all sorts of other locations too. The fields outside Minas Tirith were very picturesque.

After the tour we continued towards Moeraki for the famous Moeraki boulders. Probably about the strangest thing you’ll find on a beach anywhere, these large, round boulders were certainly an unusual sight. The beach on which they sat was around 8km long but the boulders only inhabit around 100m of it. The car park is a ten minute walk from the boulders so when walking along the beach towards them, we saw a large cluster of people off in the distance, huddled together on an otherwise empty beach. Climbing the boulders and jumping off them was cool.

In what was a busy day, we also found time to go penguin spotting. We drove out along the coast to the Katiki Point Lighthouse but we weren’t very interested in seeing it, the main draw here was the yellow-eyed penguin ‘hide’ at Hide Bay. A steep path quickly led us down to the hide where windows and binoculars overlooked a small penguin nesting beach cove. The penguins go out hunting all day and return at around 6pm (when we were fortunate enough to be in the hide), hop up onto the rocks, dry off and waddle along the short beach to their hidden nests. We saw 5 penguins, 2 of them were fully grown ones that came in from sea and the other 3 were baby penguins waiting for the return of their parents. They were very cute but it was a little heartbreaking seeing them waiting so patiently out in the rain, and then finally, when the adults returned, facing constant rejection each time they waddled up to the wrong penguin looking for food. Those baby penguins didn’t find their parents. They’re probably still out there waiting for them :(

Having gotten a late start the next day (a 1 pm checkout time was a very pleasant surprise!), we arrived in Dunedin at around 2:30pm. We drove through the city a little but today was not the day we’d be seeing it. Today, we checked out the surrounding area and we were very glad we did! We weren’t originally going to come here but Sue was so passionate when she talked about this place that we thought we had to give it a go. True to her word, the area surrounding Dunedin was stunning. Probably as beautiful as the world beating scenery seen when driving into and out of Kaikoura (the most beautiful place in the world, if you missed my previous posts). Driving on these narrow, winding coastal roads was an absolute pleasure. We drove out along the Otago Peninsula, following the road all the way up to a place called Taiaroa Head and its popular albatross conservation centre.

After the drive back on the gorgeous Otago Peninsula we headed to Sandfly Bay. Man, that place was a force of nature!

We went there on a windy day and immediately understood how it got its name. The cliffs at either end of this beach direct the winds inland, allowing them to gain speed and power, shifting huge quantities of sand. There was more sand hitting my face than air!

On a calm day (I got a taste of this when the wind slowed), the contoured and swirly striped dunes were a visual wonderland but it was only with strong winds that this place truly came alive. Everything on the beach (including us) was being blasted by the sand, as I turned away from the wind I saw the swirling sand racing up the myriad dune channels. It looked so cool! Jill hated it, especially walking up the massive sands dunes on the way back but I loved it.

There was a yellow-eyed penguin hide at the far end of the beach. It was a very enjoyable, scenic walk getting there, what with the energy sapping sand dunes and sand blasting wind keeping things interesting (it had started raining by this point too), but the penguin spotting wasn’t so good. There were a few sleeping sea lions around, one of them was right in front of the narrow path leading to the hide so getting around that one was pretty interesting, but we saw more penguins the day before at Katiki Point Lighthouse. An outstanding trip out though!