Oamaru

After my visit to Christchurch I hopped on state highway 2 and drive down the west coast towards Dunedin, my end destination. Traveling by rental car gave me the opportunity to stop where I wanted and do what I wanted to do, and after some quick research I decided to stop in Oamaru for the night. The hostel I found was called Chillawhile Backpackers and had a great set up. It was on the edge of town right off of the highway, which is really a two lane road, and looked to be an old historic house. The hostel offered cheap accommodations as well as musical instruments and free art supplies. I arrived on the third Thursday of November, which means very little to everyone outside of the states, but I got lucky and Thursday happened to be the night the hostel had group dinners, so even though I was not celebrating Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, I still got to share my meal with friends. After dinner we played games in the living room. The hostel did not have a tv, which forced theeveryone there to engaged with one another. We played giant jenga and cards, both of which were not the main focus, the best part was we all were in the same room and talked to each other. I met some very interesting people the first night I was there which convinced me to stay another night. The following day I met up with some people I had befriended the night before, and since I had a vehicle we all decided to go for a journey around the local area. One person had a fishing pole and knew of a great place to fish so we started there. We went to a rocky beach where a river ran in to the ocean. In order to get there we had to go through some farms, including a cow farm.

Cow crossing

Rock hunting and fishing

Fishing

After our day in the sun we headed back to the hostel, with out a fish, and made dinner together. We had a similar set up to the night before but it was just a few of us instead of the whole hostel. I made a spanish tortilla, or potato pancake, with another american girl and the other people we were with made classic asian dishes. It was a great meal. I took off the next morning for Dunedin and stopped in a few spots, including the Moeraki Boulders. These boulders are all over the beach and look like giant eggs. The boulders are basically cement boulders that have been rounded by wave action and are harder than the surrounding mud and sand which they are found in. To say the least they are very interesting.

Moeraki Boulders

Moeraki Boulders

Moeraki Boulder

The drive to Dunedin was easy and I arrived around midmorning. The car wasn’t due back until the next day but I wanted to get rid of it when I got to Dunedin in order to not worry about parking or dropping it off the following morning.

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