The road
highlights were the spectacular views from the highway at Manawatu
Gorge (just after Palmerston North) and the stormy area between
Featherston and Upper Hut, where stormwinds and pouring rain made the
driving a real adventure – and even in this weather the landscape
was fascinating.
Cape Palliser was
our first longer stop and is absolutely worth the drive! The
landscape is beautiful, flat fields being replaced by rough cliffs
and rocky golden hills, next to a turquoise ocean. Before you reach
the actual cape, a 30 minutes track leads to the Putangirua
Pinnacles, a mystical area where corrosion and rain have shaped rocky
spires and towers next to an ancient river bed. I was especially
fascinated by the rocks we found along the way – once parts of the
riverbed, mud turned into brown stone, they displayed several layers
of shells, their shapes pressed into the stone, showing how much life
there once was in the river.
The Pinnacles are
also one of the many movie sets for Lord of the Rings in the area. A
lot of the filming was done around Wellington. The rough rocks we
walked by were ruled by ghosts in the movie: Dimholt road, the path
to the city of the dead.
Reaching Cape Palliser, the first thing that caught our eyes were the rocks that line the coast, forming steep cliffs or diagonal shapes, spread over the yellow fields and sticking out of the ocean. On some of these rocks there are seals to be found – we watched one of the colonies for quite a while, and are still fond of them. Photos might turn out to look all the same after a while, but watching them never gets boring.
The lighthouse at
Cape Palliser has charm, too, with it's traditional white and red
painting - especially when the sun is about to set. We didn't climb
the 250 steps up there, but enjoyed the view from the seaside
instead, taking in all the beautiful rocks and hills around it. On the way back to the campsite we were welcomed by a beautiful, glowing red dusk sky.
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