Greetings, Friends! I'm so flattered you decided to stop by for another dose of Keegaventures. I thought once was enough, but you are somewhat of a masochist aren't you? Alrighty then, on we go!
My stay in Oamaru was pretty great. Good ‘ol Agra, the owner of my hostel, had me bring along her energetic Border Collie, Liker, along with me on a lung-bursting run up the hills of Oamaru. Having the dog was actually pretty great because she pulled me up the hill with her exuberance. Found my way to the top of the point, overlooking the bay and entire town. Helluva way to start the day.
After parting with Agra and Liker, I met up with Shantel, a delightful Canadian I met the night before, in a coffeeshop that felt straight out of Williamsburg. Harbour Street is a timewarp- with old victorian architecture and shops run by wool-shearers, sculpture artists, and craftsmen. With all the abandoned commercial real estate in the area, I think it’s ripe for cultural reinnessance.
After this, Shantel and I wandered over to the SteamPunk museum, which was fucking AWESOME. Dark, dank, and creepy, it was an epic image of a world without circuitry in favor of steam. The Portal was a mirrored room with dangling LED lights that made me feel like I was floating in a gravity-less star world. See pics for a sense of the space.
After literally the worst sushi of our lives, Shantel and I parted ways and I sped on down to Dunedin. I’ve since finished Into Thin Air, and begun the Sci-Fi hit We Are Legion (We Are Bob). The narrator is incredibly animated and the story very funny, especially for anyone who’s a sci fi nerd. Highly recommend.
Dunedin was a breath of young-people fresh air. I stayed at a Hostel called Hogwarts (for obvious reasons) and it was filled with all sorts of friendly folks. Dunedin, being a college town, also had oodles of young people roaming the streets, which was a FIRST for any city I’ve been to yet. I also couldn’t help but notice that there were significantly more women walking around than men. As it turns out, Dunedin suffers from “man drought” due to the 6to1 female to male ratio at the University of Otago. Who knew?!
My first day at Hogwarts I met Amber, a St Louis native, in the kitchen. She was en route to feed sheep at a local kiwi friend’s house just outside the city. I couldn’t pass up a chance to hang with an American, a kiwi, and some precocious young sheep, so I joined up with Amber and we scooted out of town. 15 minutes later we met Birde and Hannah, the former being a student from Germany and the latter the native Kiwi. We hung around Hannah’s house (actually her aunt and uncles place) and fed the skittish little wool-bags with apples and bread. They were very unappreciative of their fruit-slinging overlords.
Birde needed a haircut for some reason, so Amber and I went to the Cadbury factory tour while she got a trim. The Cadbury factory will soon be closing, so we thought it was worth a visit to the $5 tour.
It was a very rainy day, but that didn’t stop the girls from wanting to push in to the countryside to hunt for penguins and sea lions. And hunt in the rain we did. So much in fact that we were soaked to the bone by the time we returned to our car from Sandfly Bay, unsuccessful apart from a single rainy log of sealion we spotted on a rock. Despite the saturated status of our clothes, we had a great ol’ time exploring.
The next morning, I awoke at 6:30am and met up with the girls to watch the sunrise at Mount Cargill. It was SO worth it. Over the cold, howling wind, the view was fantastic. The day before, I had mentioned that I wanted to take a naked picture on top of a mountain sometime on my travels. The girls of course remembered this and within seconds Hannah had my camera and they were getting me lined up in to position. It was fucking frigid cold, yet oddly freeing, to stand on top of this massive mountain with the wind whistling through my nethers. The giggles behind me were raucous, but the grin on my face was worth it.
I set off from Dunedin solo, and it was very nice to be on my own once again. I loved having company to explore with, but I have also become very comfortable with being on my lonesome. Once I was back on a trail, the only human in sight, I felt glee surge forth from me. The path was ridiculously muddy from recent rains, but my bigass hiking boots squelched through it without a problem. When I reached the waterfall that was my target, I found a group of 8 college kids cheering their friends on to swim in the pool at the base of the falls. The moment they saw me, they started cheering and haggling me to join in the fun. I couldn't help it, I hopped right in.
In Dunedin I also met some friendly Germans, Joschka and Linda, who I continually ran in to over the next few days traveling to Curio Bay and Invercargill. After this last run in, we decided we might as well just travel together. We set out from Invercargill, the southernmost city of NZ, for Gemstone Beach. We spent a relaxing few hours picking through the sand-smoothed stones of the beach. Next, we set our cars for Clifden Caves, an INCREDIBLE 300m cave system that has somehow escaped the tourist routes and sits awaiting only those in the know.
The caves were fucking AWESOME. In the US, these caves would definitely be forbidden from public use without a tourguide, full climbing gear, and two pages worth of liability paperwork to sign before you could set foot inside. But this is NEW ZEALAND. Just read the simple, faded sign with some history and warnings about lighting and flash flood warnings and off you go!
We climbed, crawled, scooted, and shuffled for over an hour underground. It was seriously cool, with underground pools and waterfalls, along with stalactites and glow worms aplenty. Total highlight of the week.
After this adrenaline filled afternoon, I turned Big D Northward for the first time, heading in to Te Anau. I’m currently preparing to do the Kepler Track Great Walk with a few young Germans guys I met in Invercargill. Wish me luck!
Over and outy,
-K