Yesterday morning in Curio Bay was rainy, windy, and cold, but Seth somehow persuaded me to go for a run with him anyways down the gravel road we drove up on (long and boring…). After the sun came out, we had a quick lunch and walked over to get a closer look at the Hector’s Dolphins that live in the bay (Porpoise Bay). There are about 20 in there and they spend all day ‘surfing’ in the wave breaks. They will even come up and join humans who are gutsy enough to go swimming in that oh-so-cold water.
Hector's Dolphins in the bay
We next walked over to the other side of the bay, which is Curio Bay, famous for its 160 million year old petrified forest. It was really cool walking along the rocks (exposed during low-tide) and getting up close to old tree stumps and trunks, turned to stone. I had always wanted to see a petrified forest and didn’t quite know what to expect so it was really interesting to see. Oddly enough, Curio Bay is also the home of the yellow-eyed penguin colony we watched the night before.
We walked back to the Dolphin Lodge and finally had a full afternoon to spend working. I got about 10min into trying to figure out where I left off in my statistical analysis before my computer started giving me major problems. I shut it down and we decided to go to use the internet at this man’s house. The man, Jim, had a flyer posted at the hostel for people to use his personal computer to get online--for $3 an hour. Probably the only internet within 50km. We called him up and drove down to the ‘town’ and he welcomed us in to his little green, four-room house. I only had enough time to get through my email and post a few journal entries, but no pictures…
At 8:45pm we rushed back over to Curio Bay to watch the penguins come in, but were again too late. Most of them already arrived. We did, however, get to watch the last pair.
This morning was equally cold and windy but the rain held off just long enough to go running down that boring road again. We then had a quick pancake lunch and checked out of the Dolphin Lodge. This hostel had alright facilities, but the people staying there were particularly cool. Most of them were German girls (and one French girl) and they were all very friendly. Unfortunately I never even caught their names. Oh well. The owners of the hostel were out of town and they left two of the girls ('WOOFers') in charge, so the atmosphere was exceptionally relaxed.
We continued driving along the Southern Scenic Route to The Nuggets (nuggetty rocks all along the shore), where we spotted a lone sea lion, a yellow-eyed penguin crossing the road (in the middle of the day, and on a cliff!), a breeding colony of little egrets, and more New Zealand fur seals. The seal pups were swimming in a small inlet protected from the rather stormy ocean—it was like a little kiddie pool! We didn’t walk all the way to the lighthouse (which was only a 15min. walk) because of wind and increasing rain.
We were starting to get worried about accommodation for tonight so skipped the other highlighted points along the road and went straight for Dunedin, the big city. We drove right to the visitor information centre in the middle of town and were placed in a long queue of people also trying to find a place to stay the next few nights. The Uni students returned today (about 25,000 of them), along with their parents, and every single hostel was booked the next several nights.
We could either camp out in a holiday park during this storm, or go back the way we came, to a backpackers 45min away. We asked about a hostel in the neighbouring town of Seacliff. Conor, from Dash, had told me about this place called the Asylum Lodge, where he had stayed before. It is an old insane asylum that had a part burn-down, killing several of its residents. Pretty crazy! The girl at the visitor information centre called them for us and they actually had a room available!
It was a bit disappointing that we finally got to a city and felt like doing ‘city things’, only to be turned around and sent back to a small town (Seacliff) in the middle of nowhere. So we spent about an hour walking around Dunedin and decided we were too hungry so bought some groceries and drove to Seacliff.
The Asylum is pretty spooky, and the wind, rain, and narrow gravel road leading up a cliff where this place is located made it seem like something out of a horror movie. The hostel is separate from the part that burnt down and inside it isn’t very scary at all.
For dinner we cooked up ‘rissoles’ (they are basically Australian meat patties with veggies and things mixed in them) with mashed potatoes and gravy. It had been a long time since we had a good serving of meat and after driving past lots of cows today we decided we needed some beef. Luckily mince is on sale for really cheap, so we indulged in these giant meatballs—and boy, did they hit the spot!!
After dinner I got to check my email via the hostel’s free internet. They only have one computer so the second someone left it I jumped on it. It was nice to use the internet for a few minutes again (the second time in two days!) but the connection was slow (just like at Jim’s house) so I could not use blog (too many photos).
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