East coast: Port Chalmers - Oamaru

Cycling the 80ish miles up the east coast from Port Chalmers to Oamaru has been full of delights: lovely folk, fur seals, giant pebbles.

Sun 1 June: Port Chalmers to Warrington…
We ambled into Port Chalmers on a sunny morning. Dunedin’s port town, it is interesting to watch the port mechanics: the heavy machinery manoeuvring timber and containers ready to be loaded onto waiting tankers. To brace ourselves for the big climb ahead (4miles up 1190ft) we stopped for coffee in the Union Co Cafe, a community hub. Here we met lovely Dee and Mark who we had an interesting wide-ranging conversation with and who convinced us to visit places ahead: including Oamaru which we hadn’t intended including in our route.

The hill was tough, but it was sunny and we enjoyed colourful sweeping views across the bay and peninsula. We ate our sandwiches at the Captain Scott monument - Port Chalmers is where he set off from for both his trips to the Antarctic. Nice roll through the countryside down the other side of the hill, joining highway 1 for a bit before turning off to make our way to the free council campsite at Warrington Domain. Walked along the beach and cooked noodles by our tent in the dark. A chilly cold dank night.

Mon 2 June: Warrington to Shag Point…
Stunning views over Karitane, where, when we reached it, we lingered enjoying hot soup at the lovely general store/cafe. After a long cycle along Highway 1 we realised we weren’t going to make the campsite we’d planned to reach and so in the dark we opted to wild camp at Shag Point. We had to move the tent from its first pitch, as we realised seals were nearby and felt we were too close to the shoreline for comfort! All through the night we heard the seal calls and their very human sounding coughs!

Tues 3 June: Shag Point to Oamaru...
Packed the tent up in the dark and had breakfast up on the Point. Looking out across the sea to the rising sun to our left, and watching the 20+ fur seals waking up to our right, bathed in orange morning light. Marvelled as we watched the seals quickly manoeuvre over the rocks - how high they can climb, to loll on the top of the cliff in the grass like solid velvety slugs. Their calls are eery - like nothing you’d expect from a seal. These moments seem unreal, like living someone else’s life you read about.

We reached the Moeraki Boulders at 10am. Loved them! So strange and unique. Exposed by the erosion of surrounding mudstone the large spherical boulders are made up of a calcite cement shell that formed around pebbles: as the process continues they ‘grow’ larger. Cracks form and are infilled with calcite crystals - visible as striking patterns on their otherwise smooth surface. Erosion has left the harder boulders behind on the beach for us to play with and enjoy.

Reached Oamaru late afternoon, where we plan to stay for two nights before heading inland along the Alps2Ocean bike trail.Leggi altro