I’ve run out of Superlatives!

Nov 8, 2009, Sunday evening
Moeraki, NZ

Ever have one of those magical days? You know, the kind that start out quite ordinary, and then everything just sort of falls into place and the stars align and you end up marveling at how blessed you feel for just being alive and in this space. Well, that’s how today was.

We had a very nice morning and afternoon as we left Timaru and drove down the coast toward Dunedin, which is where we planned to spend the night. The countryside is breath-taking… the ocean on the left and mountain ranges on the right. Some sort of bright yellow plant is flowering in the fields and it looked just spectacular when viewed with the snowcapped mountains behind. There are sheep everywhere, dotting the hillsides and fields like little grey stones, as well as the occasional llama and quite a lot of dairy cows. It’s lambing season, so there were lots of little ones cavorting about as we drove by. The grazing paddocks all seem to be bordered by giant hedges. They must be 12 feet high at least, and sheared into a formal hedge on the sides and top. Who does that? And how do they do it? I’m picturing Paul Bunyan with a hedge shears!

I managed to visit two botanical gardens in one day and, although the roses are not yet blooming (they are behind due to a very cold October), the peonies and rhododendrons are magnificent. The peonies especially. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m about to call a quit to my efforts at growing roses and switch over entirely to peonies.

At lunch we asked our waitress for suggestions of things to see along the way and she suggested we stop in Moeraki to see the boulders. I checked the handy dandy NZ guide that the Hennepin County Library was kind enough to lend me, and it recommended several things to see in this little fishing village. On the spur of the moment, we decided to stop here instead of continuing the additional 90 km to Dunedin. And that seems to be the moment everything shifted into place. We found the spot on the shore where the boulders are located and hiked down to see them. They are completely otherworldly; as if the Gods were interrupted in the midst of a lawn bowling game and just left the balls lying about in the sand. Scattered along about a one mile stretch are gigantic boulders that are perfectly round, in varying stages of erosion. Some are just poking up out of the ground, smooth as an egg. Others are completely on top of the sand and have cracked along their weak points. Others have cracked completely open, revealing the inside, which looks a little like an agate. It’s a bit like seeing eggs strewn about… some ready to hatch, others with the chick just pecking through and still others completely hatched and the fragments left behind. It’s really indescribably weird and wonderful. Toss into that a shoreline full of fabulous shells and stones and funky seaweed and I was able to really indulge in one of my favorite pastimes – beachcombing. There are millions (honestly, it’s got to be millions) of iridescent, spiral shells no bigger than my pinky fingernail in all sorts of funky stripes and color combinations. As you can imagine, we both had our cameras working overtime. I could have crawled the length of that beach on my hands and knees and still not seen it closely enough.

When we finally pulled ourselves away, it was a short drive into the village and we found the holiday park at the top of a cliff overlooking the harbour. How sweet is that? Our guidebook told us in no uncertain terms that if we were in Moeraki, there was no other place to eat than Fleur’s Place. Man! They weren’t kidding. We walked in and grabbed a table by the window. Turns out we just happened to catch them in between reservations and it was our dumb luck that the table was open. Seafood and fish is the thing to eat here. It’s a harbour town and we could see the fishing boat out our window, swarmed with gulls as they obviously were cleaning the day’s catch. And just that fast it seemed to appear on our plates. We had a gorgeous local wine and local fish and stuffed ourselves to the gills (pardon the pun). Live music and a beautiful sunset topped us off.

And now here we are back in our little camper-van, parked above the harbour, and ready to call it a day. And it really was a day. A blessing. I am so glad I got to be part of it.