A classic boulder alone on the beach/
The children sitting on one of the boulders.
Our Son B with a group of boulders.
Daughter J atop a boulder with SB beside her.
And here is another view showing the miserable overcast day it was. It had been raining, & was rather cold.
This was taken at Lake Brunner area where we detoured to see some Maori art in this shallow cave area. Unfortunately the art does not show in this photo at all. It was very faint, & had been done on the wall behind us, & was supposedly very old. It certainly looked aged. We had decided to take the children to Dunedin, for a fornight in February which is summer time, & school Holidays in New Zealand. I had never been down to Dunedin, & was looking forward to visiting this most Scottish of Cities in New Zealand. It has a Castle, & was a destination I had wanted to reach, since moving to the South Island.
Well, best laid plans, & all that. The weather did not cooperate, & we had nothing but drizzle, rain, & cold from the day we set off. We were motelling it, & the children had been looking forward to swimming in pools on our trip south. Normally during February it is quite hot & so it had seemed a lovely trip idea.
We spent two horrible cold & miserable days at two different motels, & decided to press on.
Shut in a motel with no comfortable lounging furniture, boring TV & cold cold cold, was no joy for any of us. The kids began to squabble as bored kids do, & we started to get that 'edge on the tone'. Smiling the teeth smiles! Snarling at the kids. Thrashing the egg beater hands about at squirming, fighting bodies in the rear seat. Driving through rain. None of it was good, so we decided to head for home.
As we were almost at Moeraki we decided to stop to see these mysterious boulders we had heard so much about. I am glad we did, because they certainly are unusual, & unique. The theory of their formation is very interesting too.
After we had taken the photos, & found some food, we headed off homeward, via a detour, so we could see the not-too-famous Maori art.
We were so glad to get home, & the kids were equally as glad to see all their familiar things to play with. The summer didnt improve, & I guess if kids have to be shut indoors it is just as well to do that at home, with all the comforts, & entertainment.
Summers are not always like that, but it is a bit of a pot luck affair, planning holidays.
I am ashamed to say I have still not been to Dunedin! My sons have both been there, & they say it is lovely. GOM had been there long before I met him. One day.....
6 comments:
Sorry to hear about the holiday being a bit of a wash out. we've had plenty of those (English summers!). Those boulders look amazing. Friends of ours have just returned from New Zealand and said it was absolutely beautiful.
Kim x
Those are some pretty odd looking boulders! Shame the holiday wasn't so fun though.
What groovy boulders! (no pun intended). They almost look man-made - though I know they aren't.
Holidays can be wonderful or awful, can't they? We had one last year during which each of us succumbed to a nasty week-long gastro virus. As is the way with these things, we were all well just as the holiday was over!
This reminds me of the saying that "Life is what happens when we are busy making plans". There's only so much we can control... the weather not being one of them; actually, when it comes right down to it there's very little we actually control at all! Again, your memory is so vivid for details... I wonder if your children's memories of this trip are the same or if they had a perfectly splendid time in the rain?
Those boulders are fascinating. I've never seen anything like them and believe me, we've looked at a LOT of rocks. Maybe I'll get to see them some day.
Just dropped by via catalyst, the lure of the music!
These boulders look like some half submerged turtle or other creature from a story!
My niece is at uni in Dunedin, and my brother and family in NSW.
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