Monday, May 21

Monday, May 21, 2007

We slept in late and were on the road at noon. Low tide began at noon today so it was going to be close with our visit to the Cathedral Caves which are only accessible at low tide. The road to the caves was straightforward enough…we only had to pull out the map once to get ourselves sorted once we realized that we should have taken a turn.

When we reached the Cathedral Caves turn off, we had to drive down a gravel road for about 3 km. I’d read that the caves were located on private land so there was a small fee to pay in order to enter. When we reached the car park, I went to use the pit toilets before Josh and I wandered over to see how much this was going to cost.

There was a lady standing by the entrance to a walking trail that led into the woods. She asked me how I was and I responded and then I asked how she was doing. All she said was, “That will be six dollars.” Okay, straight to business I see. Not a bad deal but Josh and I wouldn’t have time to linger because high tide was coming in and that makes the caves dangerous so we’d have to be out of park by 2 because the lady said she’d shut the gate on the road at that time.

That meant we had an hour total. The walk down through the forest to the beach took 20 minutes, quickly looking at the caves was another 15 minutes or so (the caves are cool but 15-20 minutes is all you need to view them), then we spent another 20 minutes or so walking back up the hill. I wasn’t feeling motivated for the climb up so I had to take a couple of breaks. Ultimately, we made it out in time and the gate at the end of the road hadn’t been closed on us. It pays to check out the tide schedule ahead of time so you don’t drive out here for nothing because it’s high tide and the caves are inaccessible.

Next, we drove back towards Fortrose Retreat to see something we’d missed on our way in to the Cathedral Caves due to trying to make it to the site during low tide: McLean Falls. It was a few kilometers down a gravel road and once we reached the car park, there were maybe two other cars there. We started of down the path to see what we could see.

What we saw at the end of the trail was a nice waterfall. When we first reached the site, there were other people there (a group of teens and I took the picture for two of them) then Josh and I were by ourselves. Since we were alone, Josh became his adventuresome self and walked beyond the fence onto the rocks of the waterfall itself. He climbed up a few rocks to see what he could see while I crossed beyond the fence but did not venture as far as he did. We took a couple of photos and then we were on our way returning to the car.

Our next stop on the road back to the Fortrose Retreat was Curio Bay. Curio Bay had a petrified forest that is viewable at low tide but two things took away from it in my opinon. It was soooo cold and soooo windy and also, the petrified forest just looked like rocks in the ocean. Something to see, I guess, but not a major site in our book. It was a really nice sunny day, however, it was just too windy.

And speaking of wind, man alive!, after Josh and I had driven on a back road to reach Slope Point we were in for a walk in the craziest wind we’ve EVER felt. It was insane! Slope Point is the southernmost point of the South Island and I don’t think it is always so windy here it just happened to be that way when we went.

After bundling up as much as I could with my coats, hat, and gloves, Josh and I got out of our car and we started walking to the point. First, you have to open a fence because part of the land is owned by a sheep farmer and Slope Point is inaccessible if they are in the lambing season. Luckily for us, that wasn’t today so we were good to keep on our walk.

It was between ¼ to ½ mile to reach the point and it wouldn’t have been so bad if the wind hadn’t had been so fierce. There are no words I can use to truly describe it. I think some of the pictures are evidence of the winds we were experience but really, WOW! Plus, that made it colder too. But, being at the southern most point of the South Island was a cool thing to say that we saw and we were definitely glad we took the effort to walk out there.

Walking back to the car was not as bad as walking to the point. Once we were back in the car and making our drive back to Fortrose Retreat, we commented that today had been just such a great day because we had sunny weather and we got to see so much because so many cool sites were so close together.

That night we tried to watch Whale Rider on VHS but the VCR at the cottage was broken. We called the owners to confirm that we weren't just incapable of using a VCR (who has a VCR only anymore anyway) and she confirmed that the machine was broken. So much for that idea.

We ran another Jacuzzi and hung out for the night. There were a couple of magazines in the house to read along with a Kiwi dictionary so I learned a lot. For example, no one knows why the New Zealand national anthem says “Guard Pacific’s Triple Star” when the Kiwi flag has 4 stars, not 3, on it. This was interesting to me because Rotarians usually sing the national anthem at the end of their meetings and I’d always wondered about the triple star concept verses the four stars on the flag. It seems as though I’m not the only one confused about the matter!

Josh and I were able to get better sleep tonight because the winds had died down and all was calm on the countryside.