Jim & Barbara Burton Travel: Rakaia

Rakaia,

On a beautiful sunny morning we said goodbye to Dunedin and drove northwards to our next stop Rakaia. En-route we stopped at Moeraki to witness these strange rock formations on the beach. This is a very popular place as the rocks are an amazing natural phenomena. They are almost perfectly spherical, with a circumference of up to 4 metres. They lie scattered along a fifty-metre stretch of beach and were formed around 60 million years ago, as lime salts gradually accumulated around a hard core. Maori legend claims they were the food baskets of Araiteuru canoe that brought the Maoris to New Zealand from Hawaiki. The canoe was wrecked and the food baskets scattered and became the smooth boulders and the wreck turned into a reef. We also had coffee here looking out over the beautiful bay.

Our next stop was Oamaru, the main town of north Otago, which has the best -preserved collection of historic public and commercial buildings in New Zealand. The buildings were fashioned in the 1880’s from Oramaru stone, a local cream coloured limestone.

We then passed through Timaru, situated halfway between Dunedin and Christchurch, where there were many people taking advantage of the wonderful weather and enjoying the beach. Just outside Timaru we stopped on the banks of the Rangitata River for a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful spot with the Southern Alps sparkling in the distance.

It was not much further to drive to the little township of Rakaia and we were welcomed by our gracious hosts Ken and Miriam at their B&B, St. Ita’s, formerly a Catholic Convent Girls School. While we were here we visited many interesting places including Rakaia Gorge, just spectacular, Terrace Downs Golf & Country Club with amazing views and the Rakaia River. This river is a braided river, a natural formation that wends itself back and forth and one of only four on the South Island of New Zealand.

We also visited Methven, primarily a ski town with the famous Blue Hotel and lovely peaceful gardens – The Garden of Harmony.

On our way to hike up to Sharplin Falls we stopped at Stavely for coffee and yummy carrot cake.

We also went to Lake Coleridge but the weather was not too good and then we travelled on to Hakatere where a lot of The Lord of the Rings was filmed. It was awesome scenery and quite eerie on the way through the valley with the low clouds and mists. We also helped to muster a few sheep on the way that were not co-operating due to oncoming traffic. Meet our new woolly friends.

We had a lovely time with Ken & Miriam at St. Ita’s and we also enjoyed taking Gypsy, their black lab for a long walk and the cuddles with Costa the cat. Their place is amazing but sadly suffered some damage from the earth-quake as did other properties in the area.