Porpoise Bay - Wanaka

Before we left the southern tip, we explored the petrified forest. Stone trees lay as they had fallen millions of years ago. This was where the baby yellow-eyed penguins were hiding, somewhere among these ancient branches and snake-like seaweed.


Did we mention that New Zealand is big? Looking at the guide books, there are so many tempting pleasures, but it really would take a year to see them all. We had 11 days. This day, we spent driving. Fortunately, it was through fascinating and progressively more stunning landscapes. Did we mention sheep? Apparently, when you come across a host of them sharing your road, you're just supposed to plow through. We were a tad concerned about the effect on our rental car deposit, but the farmer grinned his ruddy face and told us to speed up. The Graham family had warned us that both the west coast and the east coast (and the southern coast, for that matter) were most lovely when it was sunny. If the weather was bad, it could be miserable. So we arranged with the weather gods for the rain to fall when the car needed washing, and only while we were on long, dull drives. As soon as the landscape grew interesting, the sun came out, and it was always shining for us when we stepped out of the car to adventure on foot. Thank you, kamisama!!!
This was an interesting piece of folkart!


We skirted past the popular adventure-traveller site of Queenstown, heading for Wanaka, which is an up-n-coming Queenstown. It really is lovely, with the only health food store we'd been able to find: Hello, Tofu!!!
We got the very last campsite, tucked behind the bath house, because there was a music festival across the road, and the campground was full of reggae lovers who wanted to not pay the $190 tickets, and enjoy the amplified music from an distance. We left before the bands began, but it was a fun and lovely night nonetheless.

We were heading towards the west coast. Our diligent search for oreo cows had still not born fruit. Brown cows of every shade, and many black and white spotted cows. But the perfect central stripe of cream... no sign of them.