BoomerGirl Diary

We had planned on driving back to Christchurch, New Zealand, from Dunedin with very few stops so that we could return the rental car before the office closed. The New Zealand landscape had other plans for us, however.

Our first detour we took was to Trotters Gorge Scenic Reserve. A quiet narrow road took us through the bottom of a gorge that winds below limestone cliffs. Trotters Gorge is considered to be of national importance since it houses unique varieties of plants and insects. It is also said to be a good place to birdwatch. We resisted the urge to park the car and take a walk, which might have been a bad decision. It seemed that we had the entire reserve to ourselves!

Returning to the highway, we were very soon again distracted by the quaint fishing village of Moeraki Township, where we had an early lunch at Fleur’s Place, a well-known seafood restaurant. I was amused to see that the famous New Zealand TV chef and food critic Rick Stein had written a quick review in Magic Marker on the restaurant door of the meal that he had enjoyed there.

Just a few kilometers further down the road we stopped yet again to see the Moeraki Boulders. The Moeraki Boulders are huge round rocks randomly scattered along the coast in a small area just north of the Township. At first glance, we thought that they had been sculpted by wind and water erosion, but that is not the case. Sea erosion is only revealing these giant marbles, not forming them. I read the description of how scientists think these formations were created several times, and I am still not clear on how it happened.

Interestingly, my husband (an engineer) read through the same description once and said, “So they don’t really know what formed the boulders, do they.”

Anyway, the short version is that the boulders were formed by crystallization of calcium and carbonates around charged particles in muddy undersea sediments, and these crystallizations condensed and grew larger in a process taking as long as 4 million years. The soft mudstone containing the boulders was raised from the seabed about 15 million years ago and erosion revealed the boulders. More may still be hidden in the cliff along the coast.

Maori legend says that the Moeraki Boulders are gourds washed from the great voyaging canoe Araiteuru when it wrecked on the New Zealand coast 1,000 years ago. Take your pick of explanations, but these rocks are eye-catching.

The final destruction of our travel schedule happened when we noticed a small, handwritten sign along the highway that said “Sheep Dog Trials” with an arrow pointing to an opening in the fence.

We had to stop and watch.

Anyone who has seen the movie “Babe” must have a special place in his or her heart for sheep herding. A glamorized, glossy, fictional place, no doubt, but one that made it impossible to not want to stop and watch the real deal in action.

There were two types of herding trials going on at the same time. The first that we watched involved sending the dog up to the top of a hill where three sheep were waiting. This was quite a long way away from the trainer, or stockman, who watched with the help of binoculars. Using whistles and shouts, the trainer had the dog move the three sheep down the hill in as straight a line as possible, through a gate, and then into an area staked out in the grass. This all had to be done in 14 minutes or less.

The first dog we saw perform made this activity look easy. The second dog might have been given a more independent set of sheep, as he and his sheep disappeared up over the top of the hill, out of sight and never to be seen again — by us, at least. The next few dogs successfully brought their sheep down the hill in good time and shape.

The second trial activity required the dog to bring three sheep down a shorter distance, but at the bottom of this hill was a small square pen that the sheep had to be put into, much like the competition in the aforementioned movie. This also proved to be fun to watch, as invariably, there was one of the three sheep that thought going into the pen was a bad idea and resisted the dog’s efforts.

Sheep are afraid of dogs, we were told, and the goal of a good herding dog is to move the sheep along without panicking them. This fine line was very important when trying to get the sheep into a small space. The dogs’ impulse is to just chaise the sheep as fast as possible, but this made the sheep scatter in all directions. The successful herding dog moved in a controlled, less threatening way that kept the sheep moving as a group in right direction.

We were impressed with how little barking or chaos was present in an area that had a lot of dogs present, most of which were not on leashes. These were well-trained dogs, and we greatly enjoyed watching them work.

Back on the road once again, we did make it back to the car rental office before closing, but not before their shuttle driver had quit for the day. Luckily, Christchurch has a great public bus system and we made it back to our house with no problem.

Next on our travel agenda is a trip to Greymouth …