An Assortment of Adventures

February 15, 2014

An Assortment of Adventures

Jens playing with the skeletal sheep riding a motorcycle.

And here's a whale made of corrugated metal - turn the dial and he "swims".

We have had to don our rainy ponchos the past few days because the rain has arrived again in New Zealand.  But that hasn’t stopped us from getting out and about to see the sights.  Some a little odd, some quite magnificent; and some just a bit of silly fun. 

The first odd sight was what is called “The Lost Gypsy Gallery”.  The caravan and gallery of sorts houses the most bizarre collection of gizmos, art and oddities you could ever find.  A lot of it is very entertaining with moving parts, lights and sounds.  We had a lot of fun at the piano that was rigged up to play sounds, bang drums, and play songs with every touch of the keyboard.  Quite amusing!

After that bit of fun it was off into the woods to find yet another waterfall.  This one, Purakaunui Falls was said to be the most photographed in all of New Zealand.  Well, she is a beauty even on a rainy day with its three tiers causing the water to fall gracefully over the stones. 

Me in my Elven Cloak at the falls.

Jens in his Elven Cloak.

Purakaunui Falls

McLean Falls

And not quite as beautiful, but still worth the 20-minute walk, was McLean Falls.  The woodlands here are very thick and our rainy ponchos became Elven Cloaks protecting us from orcas and other beasts that may have been hiding in amongst the rocks and trees.  All kidding aside, the area we are in is known as the Catlins and has some of the oldest, untouched forests in all of New Zealand.  Remember, the Europeans who settled here were big into sheep farming and to create grazing land burnt acres and acres of forest to the ground.   

Then it was off to see a petrified forest that was, in all places, at the seaside and can only be seen at low tide.  All the stumps you see in the picture used to be trees and the other photo is of a fallen tree, petrified into stone.  Very cool and very interesting to read how this all happened 170 million years ago when heavy rains caused the silica rich ash from a nearby volcano to flood the forest, turning the trees into stone. 

The Petrified Forest at the Sea

The brown lumps are the stumps of the trees.

This is a good example of a fallen log - petrified. 

Now for the silly fun.  We saw on the map that we would be going right by “Niagara Falls”.  So, of course, we had to stop by and see what that was all about.  It seems a surveyor with a sense of humor named these “falls” after the great Niagara Falls.  I have to say, it was with a great imagination that he did so because all we saw was a muddy, fast flowing river.

Niagara Falls???

And, a bit more silly fun to end our day.  We came upon “Gemstone Beach” where it is said you can find various gemstones such as sapphires and garnets.  So off we went fossicking hoping to find a treasure but I think all we came back with were a bunch of pretty rocks.  Which is completely fine with me.  I am a rock collector from way back and just can’t resist bringing home a pretty rock or two.  This time it was more difficult because the rocks are really, very nice here.  Oh but for the baggage allowances on the flight home I’d have a duffel bag full of rocks. 

The rocks or gemstones we could have found.

The Rocks we came back with...