The Catlins

Rocks off Nugget Point

Nugget Point lighthouse

Inside the tunnel at Tunnel Beach.

Tunnel Beach. A prosperous farmer had a tunnel drilled down through the limestone bluffs in the 19th century so that his family could enjoy the beautiful beach below his fields.

Tunnel beach from above.

Purportedly the steepest residential street in the world. I now have complete and utter faith in the Orthia's brakes.

Beautiful old train station in Dunedin.

Taieri Gorge Railway - yes, this Was the easiest way into central Otago.

Otago

Lupines (introduced to NZ) and the Clay Cliffs.

The crazy crevasse-riddled landscape of a fault zone at Earthquakes in central Otago. Sheep wandered around, unconcerned about the big holes hidden by the long grass.

Ancient whale bones in limestone.

Only in NZ. And maybe Australia.

Moeraki boulders- concretions caused by the gradual buildup of layers of calcitic algae. Some of the finest examples in the world.

Concretion boulders, Moeraki.

Otago Peninsula

Otago Peninsula -

My day trip out on the peninsula was very enjoyable. I hiked partway out to Sandfly Bay- a beautiful windy track with nice views of bright sand dunes, blue sea, and beautiful greenery and flowers. I wish I’d had time to run down the dunes all the way to the beach. I raced a big cargo ship out to the very end of the Peninsula where the only mainland-based breeding colony of Royal Albatrosses was located. The area was a reserve, carefully protected from predators. I took my time in the good museum display and had a tour.

Royal Albatross are one of the world’s biggest birds, with a wingspan of 9’6”. They are superb gliders, reaching speeds of 75 mph and staying aloft at sea for months at a time. They sleep on the wing, only for a couple minutes at a time. The museum had a wall mounting of a huge amount of indigestible trash-mostly plastic- taken out of the stomach of an albatross.
The colony contained 99 birds which had probably moved in from overcrowded offshore island rookeries.(Chatham Island has 20,000 birds) The head became a good location after the shrub was cleared for defense structures during the Great Game tensions between Great Britain and Russia. The first recorded egg was laid in 1920. But it was not until 1938 that a chick fledged successfully.

Eggs are laid in November, and incubation takes 11 weeks - one of the longest avian incubation periods. Chicks emerge in February, taking an average of 3 days to break out of the shell. For the next month they are then guarded and kept warm by one parent while the other searches for food. Thereafter the chicks are left on their own for 2-4 days while the parents leave to fish. The downy chicks are comically large. At seven months of age, they weigh 10-12 kg (adults are only 8-9 kg). The extra weight sees them through the September fledging process. After chicks fledge, they take off for the rich fishing grounds off the coast of South America. Here they spend 3-5 years continuously at sea before coming back to the colonies to socialize and select mates. At 9-12 years they breed for the first time, and continue to breed every other year. Royal albatrosses can live longer than 60 years; average lifespan is 30-40 years.

The headland also provides safe breeding grounds for several other endangered species. On its upper side, the Royal Albatross colony is abutted by a colony of Red-Beaked Gulls, a crowded acre rife with noisy chicks. Down near the water, Stewart Island Shags incubate eggs on volcano-shaped mud mounds. The world population of Stewart Island shags numbers about 400. They are solitary hunters, flying fast and diving up to 100’ deep for fish. The more common Spotted Shags are communal hunters the fish mid-level waters up to 10 miles offshore. They have lovely breeding plumage. The peninsula is also home to penguins. Blue penguins are quite common. They’re tiny- only 2 lbs. They fish over the continental shelf and come home to ground burrows at sunset in large rafts. Yellow eyed- penguins are rarer, larger (10 lbs), and very shy. They go back and forth in the afternoon, feeding chicks in ground burrows. They dive to the seafloor and mid-level waters to feed.

Wanaka Rodeo

Last night I stayed at Matterhorn south, which had a nice vibe. The TV room was full of Israelis and French speaking their respective languages in little clusters, but the kitchen had a big group of odd-looking Canadian college kids playing cards. The girls all had half-shaved heads etc. Things drifted into a game of slap-nose, but the girl who lost was so scared they all just gave her little love-taps with her deck of cards.

In the morning I went to the rodeo. It was awesome. Things started out with perfect weather and the 2nd division- entertaining due to the number of falls and mishaps. I was hoping to see a woman in the bull- or broncho-riding events, or even in steer wrestling, but they were only in course-races. And there were quite a lot of female contestants in those. The first one out was a little thing in a bright green shirt. She spurred her mount hard and bounced around so much I was amazed she stayed on and figured that must have been what I looked like on the Dart Stables horse. Second class had steer-riding, steer roping, steer wrestling (fun to watch), 2-person steer roping (featuring several husband-and-wife teams and one father and son team with a 14 yr old, broncho riding, and the barrel course. Some really little kids did the barrel race- the youngest looked about six and fell off at the end. He was carried off crying into daddy’s shoulder. NZ is awesome, have I mentioned that? Around the time the second division ended, it started to pour rain. Of course the hardy kiwis just stayed for the most part, many of them just sitting out getting soaked in sweatshirts and shorts. There were a lot of romantic old-timey-looking types in dusters and cowboy hats. One woman I sat near was telling stories about breaking her back and being medevaced by the Flying Doctors. First Division was quite exciting. I went down off the hill and took up a position right next to the ring to watch the riders’ technique. The broncho riders really got tossed around- made me want to try it! Most of them leaned way back, almost laying on the horses’ back. Most, but not all, made the requisite eight seconds, and were awarded points based on skill and style. Some of the horses made a lot of noise kicking at their pens, and a couple burst forth on two hind legs, rearing high as soon as they had room. More than one rider was stepped on, but none spent more than a couple minutes doubled over in pain afterwards… The highlight of the rodeo came last- the bull riders. The bulls were big and looked like they were made of pure muscle. They averaged 1500 lbs. A couple guys ended up getting stepped on here too, but didn’t seem to suffer any permanent injury. They had only a rope wound round the bull’s middle to hold on to. After they fell most bulls would continue bucking until the rope came off too, giving the rider some time to move away. When a bull went for the rider, the young, nimble bull fighters (dressed in rugby uniforms, what else?) would deftly distract him, working in teams to allow each other to escape if the bull came to close. Everyone was wary of these animals, leaping up onto the fence if one came to close. One bull went into a rage and rolled a barrel all around the ring, which was hilarious. They were all worked up and great strings of snot hung from their noses. A lot of the games seemed cruel to the livestock, but then again I suppose they’re all destined for the meat market soon anyway. At times throughout the day the bull fighters would have a hard time getting one back into the pens, and the announcer and his friend would clown around and entertain the audience with unflagging energy. Of course this included a few oaths, dirty jokes, kissing of random ladies, and buttock-baring, in spite of the family venue! I’m very excited to start riding now. My first lesson is the day after tomorrow, and I’ll be telling her I’m interested in riding fast and jumping.

Otago Goldfields

I stopped at Goldfields Mining Center at Gee’s Flat in Otago for a $25 tour. Gold was discovered here in the 1861 in the Lawrence River near Dunedin - 20 years after the California gold rush and 10 years after Australia’s gold rush. Many of the men who had worked claims in these rushes traveled to New Zealand to try their luck here. After the finds petered out, they were followed by Chinese miners who kept to themselves and were discriminated against. They averaged half as much income as the European miners. The first miners took up to 40 kilos a week out of the river. Nuggets are fairly common; last week a German gold-panner found a pinky-sized nugget. Gold nuggets are worth 4-5 times their weight, due to rarity. Most Cromwell gold is quite pure. Gold is very ductile - a matchbox sized piece can be hammered into a workable sheet the size of a tennis court. The source of the Cromwell gold has been traced to the hills up the river, but never found. If it hasn’t been eroded away, it’s probably a rich deposit. The mined area is an old river bank. The current river has downcut below the level of the mining field to create the Kawarau Gorge. 200-foot deep layers of flood-deposited, gold-bearing gravel alternate with clay blown in during dry glacial periods. The gravel beds are now protected, but the gravel of the riverbed still contains gold and is still panned by individual entrepreneurs. The tour guide, a nice older fellow, passed around some gold flakes and valuable nuggets. Then he took us up and ran some still-operating 1890’s machinery. The machines were simple affairs, run off head pressure created by twin dammed lakes 180’ up the hill. One unit, called a stamper battery, contained water-driven weighted stampers that crushed gold-bearing quartz to a dust, which was then run in a water stream over a mercury-plated copper ramp, which attracted the gold dust and held it. He also showed us a California sluice gun- basically a monitor gun which flowed 200-500 gpm out of variable-sized tips to hydraulically erode the hillside. Numerous hand-dug tunnels and shafts penetrate the landscape. Miners dug down to explore deeper gravel layers as the upper ones became worked out. Mining continued off and on at Gee’s Flat for 130 years, until it became a protected historical area. Now many visitors and ticket holders from the nearby jetboat operation take tours and pan for gold in gravels borught up from the river. I tried my hand at panning- filling a shallow broad dish with gravel and some small lead pellets, then rinsing it several times and swirling water through it until all the light gravel was washed out. I was very happy to find a bit of gold-bearing quartz at the bottom. Retention pond built by miners to provide reliable water pressure to operate equipment.

Huts of Chinese miners.

Inside a hut

Hydraulic sluice guns made the work of digging out gold-bearing gravel easier.

Hydraulic power for the stamper battery.

19th century stamper battery- still operating! Ore-bearing rock was crushed by the large weighted rods of the stamper. The resulting wet slurry ran down the ramp seen in front. The ramp's coated in mercury, which has an affinity for gold and picked up the gold dust out of the slurry.

Dark layers of gold-bearing gravel visible in hillside.

Wetas

From All About Wetas by Waitomo Caves Museum Society

The weta is one of NZ’s most infamous creatures.  The Maori called them Devils of the Night, or Gods of Ugly Things.  An early scientist, Sir Walter Buller, once attempted to collect and kill some wetas for studying.  One was held underwater for four days but survived; another was still alive after being dropped into near-boiling water; while yet another ate its way out of his handkerchief.  But in spite of their fearsome appearance they are quite harmless, and very rarely aggressive.
Wetas are found in several Southern Hemisphere countries apart from NZ.  The largest species found here are the heaviest insects in the world, weighing up to 70g- however there are over 70 species of weta in NZ.  Even older than the tuatara, wetas are a very primitive creature.  Our wetas have changed very little since NZ was isolated from the rest of the world many years ago.  In fact some species are very similar now to when they lived with the dinosaurs. 
Wetas can be divided into four major groups - cave wetas, tree wetas, ground wetas, and giant wetas. 
Cave Wetas can be identified by their small bodies with relatively long legs.  One species in Northland has a body length of about 2.5 cm - but its total length from antennae to hind legs is 35cm.  They choose to live in dark places- not just in caves but in crevices and mine tunnels, and under logs and houses.  Deep in caves, there is not always a good food supply, so they are seldom found far from entrances.
Because they live in little or no light, they have very small eyes- so their long legs and antennae are needed to help them feel around in the dark.  The antennae are also waved around in the air to detect air currents.  If disturbed, they can move very quickly and can jump up to 2m.
Cave wetas occasionally eat each other before their shells get hard, but usually they just eat soft plants like algae, as well as fungi and dead animals.  On dark moonless nights, they often come outside in large groups to feed.
Tree and Ground Wetas:  Tree wetas (or bush wetas) are NZ’s most common weta, found everywhere except in the far south.  They are often unearthed hiding in piles of firewood, and are distinguished by their large heads.  Like grasshoppers they have ears on their front legs, while the back legs are rubbed against their stomach to produce mating and fighting noises.  Fighting is common amongst males competing for a group of females- the winner is usually the weta with the biggest jaws. 
Tree wetas eat the leaves of many different plants, but prefer the softer leaves of some species such as mahoe or karamu.  The females will sometimes eat their own discarded skins or other dead insects, to get extra energy for egg laying.
Ground wetas are much smaller than tree wetas and don’t have such big heads.  As the name suggests they live in the ground, often in holes left by other insects, such as grass grubs and cicadas.  Ground wetas, like cave wetas, are silent and have no ears.
Giant Wetas are the least common, but most fascinating type of weta found in NZ.  Ten species have been discovered so far, in a variety of habitats - some live in burrows, some in the tops of trees, and some on alpine rock slopes.  Most species are found in only very small areas, such as the Mahoenui giant weta - found only in a 300 hectare area of gorse in the King Country.
They are too large to jump (some are up to 8cm long), and are quite slow moving.  This makes them readily preyed upon by rats, more so because the burrows of some species are large enough for a rat to enter.  Because of this, and their limited distribution, most species are in danger of becoming extinct.  Many of the largest species are now found only on offshore islands where rats have been eliminated.  All our species of giant weta are protected by law.
The various types of wetas lay their eggs in various ways, because of their diverse habitats.  Female cave wetas use their ovipositor (an egg laying organ extending form the rear end) to find soft cave mud of the right texture and depth, then lay just one or two eggs per hole.  Tree wetas lay roughly 250 eggs in the soil (about 15mm down) near the base of their tree- the only time in their life that they descend to the ground.
Ground wetas lay their eggs in the burrow walls, where the young wetas end up spending much of their early life; giant wetas lay up to 400 eggs when they reach their maximum size (just before dying), usually in soil near their natural habitat.
Most wetas live for around two years, during which they evolve form an egg to a series of immature forms known as nymphs, in instars, and finally to full adult maturity.  However, the details of the life cycle are poorly known for many species.  Cave wetas lay their eggs in late autumn.  The eggs take about 8 months to incubate, after which the nymph goes through three moults (each moult is an instar) before reaching maturity.  A typical ground or tree weta goes through 10 instars.  Each stage is only slightly different from that before it, so that by the time the weta reaches the sixth or seventh instar it is almost mature.  Giant wetas also go through about ten instars.  The often break their antennae while shedding skin between instars, but can easily regenerate them.

Manapouri Power Station Road

Road cut deep into Fiordland, crossing by dozens of avalanche paths, looking down on one of the world's biggest landslides (forming the valley floor in bottom picture)

The Clifden Caves

Glowworms in the Clifden CavesAfter Hump Ridge I left Tuatapere for the Clifden Caves. I was reading Beyond the Deep - about scientist/inventor/explorer Bill Stone’s 1960’s- 1990’s efforts to bottom the Rio Augustin Cave (mbe a mile deep) in Mexico’s Huatla Plateau. The Huatla Plateau is a big area of limestone highlands standing above the surrounding desert. It’s high enough to attract most of the seasonal rain in the area, which tends to sink into underground rivers. The place is a caver mecca, akin to Florida’s watery cave system. The bottom of the San Augustin cave is one of the remotest places in the world, due to the technical nature of the descent and the frequent long sumps blocking its tunnels. Bill Stone spent 40 years chasing the world depth record in this cave. Over the course of the book there are many near misses (his girlfriend catches her hair in a rack while descending... a teammate threads a rack backwards in the dark when his carbide light fails and when the pins flip out he is only saved from falling to his death by his own immense strength... a newer teammate, exhausted and burnt-out, makes mistakes and almost drowns in a waterfall twice... a couple divers dive a complex new rebreather unit without changing a CO2 scrubber that’s low and become hypoxic…).
And there are several deaths - one very experienced team member is an insulin-dependent diabetic. Alone in the rebreather beyond the last sump, he suffers a hypoglycemic episode and tragically drowns in a big chamber, not far from land. In a separate cave, a renowned older diver fails to resurface after attempting to set a record by diving to 1000’ feet in a cenote. His body pops to the surface days later, its tissues and the encapsulating wetsuit ruptured by expanding gases. Another friend dies in a silt-out in a Florda cave (divers on open-circuit systems have only about 20-80 min air, depending on their depth. They depend on waterproof electric lights, and even when following best practice by taking 2 backups, total failures do happen. Many underwater cave tunnels are coated in fine, flour-like silt that is easily stirred up, reducing visibility to nothing. Divers tend to reel out a thin line behind them as they go, but if they lose this line or pull on it too hard so that its cut by a sharp rock edge, odds of getting out in time in a silt-out are low.)
In the end, the initially large team is so disheartened by the work, conditions, and these tragedies, that only Bill, his girlfriend Barbara, and one dedicated doctor friend remain deep in the cave. If anything goes wrong, it will be very serious. With the flooding of the wet season imminent, Bill and Barbara dive the long sump which had blocked further progress until Bill designed his own rebreathers. They then spend a week following various dry abandoned under ground river beds, and renew the cave’s status as the deepest in the Americas. They also tie it in to other parts of the Huatla system. They are finally defeated by ‘the mother of all sumps’. I believe the cave has still not been bottomed. All this really makes me want to go into more caves!
So anyway, off to the Clifden caves. All there was to mark them was a sign on the side of the highway and a small gravel parking area. I opened a page of a book I was reading and wrote a note to leave in my windshield ‘entered caves at 1230pm’. Haha, hopefully if I didn’t come out someone would eventually notice. The DOC warns (and I do tend to take their warnings very seriously, tempting as it is to try going against them) not to go into the cave if there is any water at all flowing in to it. It’s subject to flash flooding. Inside, I found grass deposited along the walls up to 4’ high from floodwaters- yikes! I grabbed my 3 lights (flashlight, keychain light, and camera flash- what? I'm poor and have to carry all my stuff when I travel…) and wandered down to the mouth. It was very dark and the thought of going alone was creepy (and recommended against by DOC).
Fortunately just as I was forcing my self in alone, a couple Frenchies rolled up and joined me. The girl chickened out and left at the first squeeze. The cave was really great. In Te Anua I took an $80 cruise to see glowworms, but there were tons more of them here. I could take pictures and look up close at the animals and their array of threads. We'd been told in Te Anau that they were super-sensitive to light, but these ones kept on glowing merrily after the flash went off. It was incredibly beautiful, and we took 2.5 hrs to get through, stopping often with lights off to look at the unexpectedly brilliant green-blue dots of light. I wondered if they would actually cast enough light to navigate by, once one’s eyes had adjusted for a long time. There were signatures on the cave walls dating back to the 1880’s. Near the end of the cave were some fun bits that required chimneying and careful balance on a narrow ledge with awkward rock projections around a deep, cold pool.
cave was every bit as cool as Cave Stream, in its own special way.