New Zealand - Moeraki Boulders

Heather:
Back to the coast again and on to Moeraki Village. We passed through the strange town of Oamaru on route, which had one street which seemed to be a bit of a time-warp with old buildings, traditional crafts and people in Victorian clothing whilst the rest of the town was tatty and smelt of sheep poo!

Moeraki Village, for some reason, has loads of Welsh street names. It's a bit weird walking down Cardiff Road and seeing signs for Tenby and Glamorgan Street. But that's not why we're here. It's all about the boulders! There are these big round boulders on the beach here. I think this is going to be another one of those occasions where Ben's photos are going to do a better job at painting the picture than me. Basically there are these big spherical rocks caused by some boring geological process that I can't remember (I just asked Ben and his description of "some sort of stuff crystallizes and forms them in certain conditions" probably isn't much more help!). Anyway they were fun to play on and make for some pretty interesting photos :0)



For the last few days we've been "freedom camping", which basically means that we've parked up over night in spots without any facilities (it's allowed believe it or not). It saves money but means we haven't had a shower for days! It's a bit like when we were working at the festivals, except then everyone else smelt too! I've started to fantasize about being clean. We bought some cheap DVDs from the supermarket and are planning to watch them on the laptop. I love how all this makes me appreciate the things I usually take for granted :0) It's funny how in the course of a few days my perspective on what constitutes luxury can change from spa pools to running water and electricity!

Last night I woke up in the night and I could hear the weirdest noise. It was a sort of whirring and sounded like it was coming from all around the van. I started to worry it might be a spaceship! I had visions of a flying saucer hovering over us. Rather surprisingly though my reaction was to refuse to look out of the window because I didn't want to be like one of those nutty Americans who claims to have been abducted by aliens! As it turns out it was a train, but I think I learned something about myself :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here!