(We’re looking for Peripatus, or velvet worms in case you were wondering)

From here we ambled up to the lookout over Karitane and Waikouaiti beaches, where a chill wind was blowing…not encouraged to hang around too long, the crew huddled around, took in another cute animal encounter (a tiny foal covered in fuzz) and sped down to Huriwa peninsula.

I won’t go into too much Huriwa detail – it’s all there in one of our earlier posts, Pa Wars - but a walk out on this brave, battered piece of coast with loops and arches is a must if you’re down near Karitane.

From here it’s north onto Waikouaiti, via a quick trip to Cherry Farm (where Seacliff Mental Hospital patients were relocated in the 1950s) for fish and chips in the last rays of sun.

Waikouaiti began as a whaling station which was bought in 1838 by Johnny Jones, a whaler from Aussie. He was apparently built like a brick house with a terrible temper and is rumoured to have unintentionally killed one of his sons by hitting him too hard with a piece of lumber. There – I did it – a piece of tragic history for this post just in time.

We piled out at Seacliff by the sign above. I reckon it’s one of the best things about warmer weather – seasonal markets that spring up around the place, where you get to see all sorts of projects that locals are busy nibbling away at through the year. Here that includes local bottled raw honey – yum – and some incredible local artists’ work (don’t let the guy below convince you either)

During the 80′s and early 90′s, Seacliff had a reputation as a home for skinheads, punks and Satanists whose extreme clothes, hairdos and attitudes made frequent NZ tabloid news. Those days were also the beginnings of Seacliff’s Winter Solstice Party, where thrash metal ruled. Though we could hear one guy rocking out on electric guitar from the bush up the hill, that all seems pretty distant now – many of those same people still live here, but as you might have guessed they’re now fashion designers, architects and artists. The Solstice party still happens, though it’s now accompanied by drum n’ bass and baked potatoes around a fire..

So onto the part of this town that noone can ignore – and secretly we were all a little excited – The Asylum. In 1884, the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum was opened. In its day it was the largest building in New Zealand (what does that say about kiwis?) With the coming of better treatment, and a more enlightened attitude to mental illness, it was later renamed Seacliff Mental Hospital. Today the site is divided between a picturesque reserve – if you can forget that it’s where all the patients used to wander – and the Asylum Backpackers which uses some remaining hospital buildings. Interestingly, the Backpackers says ‘open’, but is padlocked shut…never mind, something about the colour of that sign makes me uneasy anyway.

to be continued….

From the road at the top of the hill, there’s no sign of any fortifications, which is why so many people have no idea this site exists. But as you follow the track down through the abundant gorse bushes, it doesn’t take long to find the first of the old gun turrets :

There are tracks and paths winding everywhere on the point, and if you take a right-turn from the gun turret shown above you reach the first of the tunnel entrances. It seems so out of place in the peaceful atmosphere of the Peninsular – and for Jane and Amanda, who have never been here before, it’s obviously kind of creepy :

Of course the skull above the entrance doesn’t exactly send a friendly message, but it’s a clue to what lies inside. The deserted structures and blank concrete walls have inspired taggers and graffitti artists to cover the bunkers with their work, which adds an extra layer of atmosphere to the place.

Naturally I forgot to bring a torch, so the only light we have are camera flashes and a cigarette lighter! “No worries” says I although my companions are not so sure. Still, we didn’t drive all this way to not go inside…

The tunnel complex is not huge, really just a “U” shaped loop with two entrances and random little rooms coming off the main corridor. It’s so dark that the only way to take photos is to poke our cameras into doorways and use the flash to light up the walls of the space. This leads to some interesting results, especially in this room which has a flooded floor :

Our camera flashes reveal that almost every wall is covered in weird scribblings and drawings :

But these tunnels are only the beginning of the abandoned fortifications at Harrington Point. We manage to find our way out (much to the relief of everybody I think!) and carry on down the hill. We soon discover another bunch of concrete huts among the gorse, which for some reason are covered in pictures of monsters…

I think these bunkers must have been living quarters for soldiers, since some of them have fireplaces and even windows. Maybe this was the bunkroom for whoever wasn’t manning the guns? :

Some stencil artist has added an appropriate touch to one wall :

After all that exploring and blazing away with our cameras, everyone agreed it was getting dangerously close to wine o’clock. All we needed was the perfect spot to crack the bottle – and that was pretty easy to find. Right down on the water’s edge are three or four gun emplacements that offer the perfect place to either go fishing, scuba diving or sit and admire the view.

Obviously we choose the latter option, although vowed to come back with fishing rods sometime – apparently it’s a great spot to catch tasty blue cod and even salmon at the right time of the year when they’re entering the harbour to spawn. We perched ourselves on the roof of the bunker – a flat concrete platform we’ve named “The Slab”. It was perfect – Jane cracked her vino, Seven found something interesting to investigate and we sat and watched the sun go down. Streams of sea birds flew past in formation, adding to the zen-like atmosphere :

And so the Sunday Drive came to a blissful end…we stumbled back up the hill in the dark, avoiding all of the tunnels, and prepared to head back to the real world. There was time for one last shot from the top of the hill, which pretty much sums up this most excellent adventure :

Me? I brought a dog – internet, meet Seven :

Yip, she’s a cutie. Seven actually belongs to my cousin Paul, but he’s at work and I haven’t got the heart to leave her at home in her pen. It proves to be a popular move – Jane and Amanda are instantly smitten and Seven, who can never get enough attention or lick enough faces, is ecstatic. But little did we know the cute animal encounters were only just beginning…

So where are we actually going? Well – it’s a doozy. We’re headed to the tip of the Otago Peninsular, to a secret spot known mainly by the keen fishermen and taggers of Dunedin – The Bunkers. Derelict WW2 gun emplacements, deserted, neglected and covered in crazy graffiti and situated in one of the most gorgeous spots anywhere along the harbour. But more about them later – first we have to get there.

There are two ways to travel the scenic marvel that is Otago Peninsular. Most people take the harbour road, which snakes along the edge of the water and passes through all the major settlements. That’s a Sunday Drive in itself, but it tends to get a little congested at the end of the day. Never one to follow the crowd, I decided to take the lesser-traveled Highcliff Road, which passes right along the spine of the Peninsular and on a sunny afternoon you get views like this :

There’s one particularly good spot to pull over on Highcliff Road, right next to the most photographed Cabbage Tree in New Zealand – this is the classic shot of Otago Harbour, seen on many a postcard :

And that’s where we met Shawn. There may be no more pitiful sound in the world than a new-born lamb that’s lost it’s mother. From out of nowhere came a nervous bleat, and there in the corner of the paddock was a shaky-legged lamb, young enough that it’s umbilical chord was still attached.

It’s effect on the girls was instantaneous – they swarmed the orphan lamb in a tidal wave of maternal instincts and concerned girly noises. There was no mother in sight, and the poor little guy was scared witless. He stuck his woolly head through the fence and looked sadly at us. I knew what was coming. “We have to help him!” “He’s all alone and scared!” “We can’t leave him behind!”. This was a full-scale cute baby animal emergency! I could see Jane was eyeing up the car and mentally calculating how much room was in the backseat. She was on the verge of tears with the sheer cuteness of it all, and seemed ready to legally adopt Shawn at a moment’s notice.

Both of them look pleadingly at me, but there’s no way it’s going to work, especially with the dog in the car as well. We finally agree to keep going on the mission to The Bunkers, but with the promise that we’ll call in on the way back and if Shawn was still there alone we’d do something about it (I’m not exactly sure what our emergency rescue plan was going to be – presumably calling 111 or shooting up some flares or something.)

So it was back on the High Road, through Portobello and right out as far as you can drive to the end of the Peninsular (almost). The spot is called Harrington Point, and most people drive right past and have no idea what’s there. Access is from the top of the hill just before Taiaroa Head and the Albatross Colony. There’s a bay on the side of the road where you can park, and it’s easy to see the track going down from the top of the hill. But first you might want to take in the view…

The reason this is such a good vantage point to see the harbour is the same reason they built gun emplacements here in World War 2 – it’s right at the absolutely narrowest part of the harbour mouth – right where they thought an invading Japanese war fleet would pass. …

part 2 – tunnels conquered and bottles uncorked…

The Taieri Plain was once a massive swamp of flax and narrow waterways but is now greener-than-green farmland – carved up into rectangular fields and scattered with livestock – it’s the classic rural New Zealand scene. We first see the Taireri River itself a few clicks past Wingatui and it’s very low and slow, lined by willow trees and apparently full of trout.

The Taieri is the third longest river in the country (320 km long) and passes through a huge variety of landscapes between it’s source in the Lammerlaw Ranges and the mouth 18km south of Dunedin. We’re going to be following it 60km upstream – and uphill. Behind the vast Taieri Plains is the Strath Taieri – a kind of high plateau or valley between the Rock and Pillar Range and the plains. Over millions of years the Taieri River has carved a deep gouge into the ancient rock of the Strath Taieri, and that’s where we’re headed.

(see a map of the route here)

It’s not long before the track starts to climb and we hit the first tunnel. I’ve been hanging out on the platform between the carriages and the sudden plunge into darkness is kind of eerie :

These pictures reminds me of “Dawn of the Dead” for some reason…

So that was Salisbury Tunnel, an impressive 437 metres long according to the train announcer, a classic Kiwi tour guide-type, complete with lots of dead-pan jokes and incredible trivia. He keeps up a pretty much constant commentary which has some interesting tit-bits. For example at the mouth of that tunnel are some kind of natural soda springs that used to be bottled and sold. I had no idea soda water just bubbled conveniently out of the ground like that and wonder if you can somehow go and sneakily fill up a few bottles now. That leads inevitably to thoughts about the state of the dining car’s beer supply. Dene is obviously psychic, as he appears from inside with a similar idea just as we hit another tunnel…

Obviously that means a bit of a gap in the photographic record at this point, although according to our helpful guide the most dramatic parts of the gorge are yet to come.

That suits me fine as I have a microwaved pie and a can of beer to deal to before any more creativity is possible. My life is certainly easier than the poor sods who had to build this railway line – in the 60km stretch of the line that we’re traveling there are 10 tunnels and 35 bridges. Work on the Otago Central Line started in 1879, as the grand gold rushes of Central Otago were on the decline and presumably a lot of the unemployed diggers were recruited to chip out a thin path through some pretty serious terrain. It took 10 years to complete the first section, 27km to Hindon, which still has it’s original little wooden station.

Once past Hindon, we enter the really dramatic section of the gorge…

The landscape just seems to get bigger and bigger and must have been a massive challenge to those poor guys that had to get the railway through. The rail line is like a tiny thread in this massive gouge in the earth, and even major constructions like viaducts seem small and insignificant :

It’s only when we’re going across it that the size of the Flat Stream viaduct becomes apparent.

It’s turned out to be a cracker of a day and the vast emptiness and stark beauty of the Gorge is finally revealed :

After several more kilometres of jaw-dropping views (and another beer) the Taieri Gorge Train reaches the end of the line. We step out at Pukerangi, having left the Gorge and reached the flat surface of the Strath Taieri Plataeu. The air is supernaturally clear, and behind the stark rock-scape of the valley the Rock and Pillar mountains loom, marking the far edge of the Strath Taieri.

Although obviously we still have to travel the 77km of track back to Dunedin, this is where the post ends my dear reader. I can’t believe it took me so long to take this trip – it was absolutely brilliant and a great day out for anybody. Train travel is just so damn pleasant and a great way to appreciate Otago’s often underrated scenic wonders – no traffic, no worries, stunning views and plenty of tasty refreshments – nice one.

]]> http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/gorge-youself-part-2/feed/ 0 asundaydrive http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/peninsula-paradise/ http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/peninsula-paradise/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:44:35 +0000 asundaydrive http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/?p=53 ]]> One of Otago Peninsula’s least visited true beaches, Boulders is the final destination on a track called Paradise. Whether it lives up to that – well, that’s up to you; it’s a wild dark place crouching beneath scooped out cliffs on the Peninsula’s East Coast and one of the first to lose the sun.

If you’re a keen bird nerd however, then you’ll be as excited as I was to find that it’s a penguin’s paradise – yep, Boulder Beach remains one of the best and most private settings in which to see Yellow-eyed Penguins. You might have to hide in the tussock long enough to convince one it’s safe to come ashore though – these birds are like cats on hot tin roofs, convinced that every dark shape is a potential threat.

So it can’t be easy to get to your burrow when the beach is full of these…

To get to boulders, park your car in Highcliff Road near the sign to Paradise Track (the upper part of the track is an unsealed 101 called Paradise Road). Follow the track on down to the beach, looking out for some of the most ancient stone wall remnants on the Peninsula, and some seriously twisted Macrocarpas which have been battered by the fierce SW winds. Beware, the trip down is an easy 40 minutes, but coming back up the hill is quite a steep climb.

Being a landscape fanatic, I have always heard the Gorge is amazing, but the road goes nowhere near it and it’s not the easiest terrain to walk over I would imagine. Far better to take the world-famous Taieri Gorge Railway and do it in style. My mate Dene’s parents are in town and they’ve got a free ticket, so it would be rude not to go…another reason I’m so hyperactive is it’s the first sunny weekend for about three months – cabin fever has well and truly set in and I’m itching to get out and take some photos…

Actually there’s plenty to see before the trip even starts; the train departs from Dunedin’s grand Railway Station - in my humble blogger’s opinion one of the most beautiful buildings in the country. But don’t just take my word for it – it’s been ranked among the world’s “200 must-see places” by a leading travel guide.

According to DK Eyewitness Travel, the Dunedin Railway Station is up there with the Coliseum in Rome and India’s Taj Mahal as one of the wonders of the world.

The station is the guide’s only New Zealand listing and is lauded as one of the best examples of railway architecture in the Southern Hemisphere. Impressive – I’m not totally convinced that it’s one of the 200 most amazing things in the world, but it is a gorgeous building, and certainly worth a bit more examination.

It was designed by George Alexander Troup (1863-1941) who went all out with his imagination and created an almost fairy-tale rail station that wouldn’t look out of place in a Harry Potter movie. Troup’s style is described as “Edwardian Baroque” by one source I found, and “Flemish” by another and don’t ask me what the difference is – but one look at the building and you’ll see where “Gingerbread George” got his nick-name from.

The distinctive light and dark pattern is from a classic style that appears in lots of Dunedin’s grand old buildings – for anyone who really likes their rocks, the dark one is local basalt, capped with famous creamy Oamaru limestone. But old Gingerbread didn’t just use the best of local materials in his masterpiece – he brought in the best from all over the world. A row of pillars along the front of the façade are pink Scottish granite from Aberdeen, and the roof is covered in terracotta tiles from France.

Inside the main booking hall are more luxurious materials – the floor is made of 750,000 ceramic tiles made by famous English ceramics makers Minton, best seen from the balcony above which itself decorated in Royal Doulton porcelain. Nice!

The station’s main platform is the country’s longest, a kilometre in length which certainly cuts down on crowding. Dene and his parents have got the tickets, and it’s time to stop geeking out about the station, and start geeking out about trains instead.

Now don’t worry – I’m not going to start quoting locomotive serial numbers or track gauges – I’m not that much of a geek – all I care about the train is that the engine bit stays attached to the comfortable passenger bit, and that they don’t run out of pies or beer in the dining car before I get there.

I grab myself a window seat and try to sit still…people are still filing on and the trip is obviously a must-do for international visitors as there are people of all shapes and sizes on board. Looking around, I notice the carriages are nicely retro and have an amazing ceiling – I ask the conductor and he tells me it’s pressed tin – another classy touch.

Somewhere up the front, the locomotive shudders and shakes and with a jaunty blast of the whistle the train pulls slowly away from the platform – we’re in business!

to be continued….

]]> http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/gorge-yourself-part-1/feed/ 0 asundaydrive http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/middlemarch/ http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/middlemarch/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:16:29 +0000 asundaydrive http://asundaydrive.wordpress.com/?p=28 ]]> One hour’s drive west of the city the open valley of the Strath Taieri awaits you– classic inland Otago country with one or two unexpected features amongst the thistley plains, one-street towns and massive skies.

The area’s first human use was by the Waitaha Iwi as a seasonal food gathering spot, as well as being traversed en route to the West Coast for treasured pounamu (greenstone). It must have been a tough overlander – with its extreme summers and winters, the Strath Taieri valley was certainly a match for the first European pasturalists who attemped to settle here in the mid-1800s and couldn’t adapt. The Taieri river supplied fish and the swampy valley moas, but the natural vegetation, mainly tussocks, could not provide a consistent food supply.

The goldminers who followed didn’t do a lot better – the valley only gathered a permanent community following the construction of the Central Otago Railway line in 1879, which still brings in visitors as it crosses from Dunedin to Clyde. Farmers eventually drained the valley, and what isn’t protected as wilderness reserve is now used mainly for high country sheep farming.

A tiny town in the centre is Middlemarch, where we arrived to find the single wide street deserted aside from two men on horse and tractor conversing in the middle of the road. Things hot up here in April however, with a yearly hoedown known as the Middlemarch Singles Dance taking over the town. The chance for romance draws over 700 people from kiwi high country farmers to women from as far as New York and Switzerland seeking their own Southern Man.

The landscape surrounding Middlemarch is dry and tussocky, scattered with spiny grasses and pancake stacks of red rock. It’s bare and harsh but spectacular at the same time – while I wouldn’t have survived this stretch of the coast to coast crossing all those years ago, it’s a great place to go walking with DoC maintained tracks.

Amongst these plains about ten minutes before Middlemarch is an unusual find, New Zealand’s only inland salt lake whose colour depends on the season. Sutton Salt Lake can be accessed through the walkway from Kidd’s Road (turn off from S.H. 87 near the Sutton railway crossing).

You can also walk, horse ride or cycle all or parts of the old Otago Central rail corridor turned into a public recreational track, which runs from Middlemarch to Clyde.

Getting there:
If driving, take State Highway 87 past Mosgiel to Middlemarch, Sutton Salt lake turnoff is on the way. You can also get to Middlemarch on the Taieri Gorge Railway which departs daily (apart from Christmas day).

Their singular mission: to draw their blog title – A Sunday Drive – in the sand, to later put up as their Custom Image Header, in doing so hoping to capture what these drives were all about: adventuring to scenic spots here and there around Dunedin to soak up the outdoors.

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It was not an easy assignment.

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Their first attempt was right by the water’s edge, which looked promising until the tide came in and nicked Amanda’s shoes. They retreated.

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They noticed it was hard getting the whole image into a frame; shooting from head height tended to make the letters very short and wide. “Foreshortening!” someone remembered and they drew Sunday Drive again, this time in very long and lean letters.

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It still wasn’t quite right; they needed to be higher. They sighted a cliff and decided to scale its precipices to get a better position, only as they approached its foot an elderly couple looked up from their romantic picnic.

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Finally the climbed the cliff at a respectful distance from the couple and got the perfect shot: Sunday Drive. They were just missing the ‘A’.

The easiest way to get there is through Port Chalmers – turn left up the hill just before town and follow the signs. It’s a nice drive – you go over the top of the hills on that side of the harbour with subsequent stunning views, and eventually down a slightly dodgy steep gravel road – not recommended in a 2WD if it’s been wet!

But my trusty Nissan Bluebird warhorse handles it ok, and as we go down (me and Amanda and our friend Jane) we can see lines of surf stacked up to the horizon.

Murdering Beach is basically between Purakanui and Aramoana (see map) and only gets swell from the east, which apparently isn’t that common. But when it does, one end of the beach transforms into a superb right-hand point break that has local surfers peeing in their wetsuits with excitement.

It’s perfect when we walk out onto the rocks to have a look – endless three-foot waves peeling symmetrically off the point. There are about six surfers out, and they’re having a whale of a time – hooting and cheering as each catches a long perfect wave and then scuttles back out around the rocks and jumps back in like a penguin. Word must travel quick – as we watch the first of many board-covered surf-mobiles crawls down the hill to join them.

Meanwhile Jane has got all inspired by the infamous name of the beach, and is taking photos of things she finds on the rocky point as if it were a murder scene :

Murdering Beach has been a popular spot for as long as humans have been in Otago, although for most of that time it had a far more appealing name – Whareakeake. Behind the golden sand beach is a swampy flat that was once the setting of a large fortified Maori pa. In the 17^th century Otago was covered with forest down to the waterline, and this would have been a great spot to live if you had to do so off the land – abundant seafood and birds in the forest, and in those days seals covering the rocks.

It was the New Zealand fur seal that first drew Europeans to Otago, and a member of the first crew in this area, William Tucker is the main reason the name of the beach was changed from Whareakeake to something far more sinister.

Tucker was at the centre of a nasty and violent conflict between European sealers and local Maori in which dozens of people were killed in the 1820′s – a terrible start to race relations in the deep south that not many people know about to this day.

A series of tit-for-tat raids was dividing the region, but somehow William Tucker settled in Whareakeake with a local wife and set about trying to make some money. When the pa-site was excavated by 20^th century archeologists it was found to be unique in all New Zealand due to its high concentration of pounamu (greenstone) artifacts. The site had so much greenstone (whole items and tones of chips from their production) that it was mined like a gold field – people staked claims and dug out as much as they could.

There were very few weapons or tools but dozens of hei-tiki – human figures worn mainly as decoration. More were found on this one small Otago beach than in any other site in the country. What was even more unusual was they seemed to have been mass-produced using iron tools – and sold to visiting sailors. It seems William Tucker pioneered a trade that still exists today – making and selling greenstone tikis to tourists.

But his luck turned, big time. After being away for a couple of years, Tucker returned to Whareakeake in 1817 with a party of sealers. No-one is really sure why, but the sailors were suddenly attacked. Two were killed, and the rest ran for the beach and tried to launch their boat in the same waves that surfers love today.

Tucker, obviously a bit slow off the mark, appeared and attempted to join them. But as he inexplicably hesitated in the surf, perhaps in a last doomed attempt to make peace, the pursuing Maori warriors caught up. He is reported as crying “for God’s sake don’t leave me!” before being “cut limb from limb and carried away by the savages” in the words of Captain James Kelly who lived to fight another day.

So there you go – that’s why it’s called Murdering Beach. It’s a cracker spot, especially for summer camping missions, with seclusion, gorgeous landscapes and killer waves…

DIRECTIONS (also see map):

Just before the Port Chalmers shops, turn left up Blueskin Road until you’re on top of the hill.

Turn right into Purakanui Road, then right again after a few k’s into Heywood Point Road.

The steep “road” down to Murdering Beach is signposted off this. Watch out in wet weather!