Otago Peninsula

We decided to expand our daily walk a bit and explore some of the many tracks on the Otago Peninsula. Here's a view of our house with the peninsula in the background. Beautiful sunny day with a few clouds over the peninsula. However, 15 minutes into the 30 minute drive to the Sandymount track, we had reached an elevation sufficient to make our ears pop and completely engulf us in the cloud cover.

I turned on my lights, slowed down, and Karen proceeded to become car sick as we made our way through the thick fog up the winding roads to the track. We passed only one car on the road there, but in true Kiwi tradition, once we reached our destination, we found a dozen cars in the parking lot.

The sign points to Lover's Leap, the Chasm, and the Lookout. The first two were down the gravel road and didn't look near as appealing as the track leading to the lookout. Karen, still nauseous from the drive, didn't hesitate to inform me of the fruitlessness of walking to a lookout point in the fog, but we started out anyway. The trail led up through a tangle of gorse, which is a thorny noxious weed introduced for hedges by the English, but which has taken over the countryside. Karen was in shorts, so we didn't go far before we'd gone far enough.

We turned around and made our way slowly back down. Karen was anxious about twisting one of her titanium knees and we lamented leaving our hiking poles in the boot of the car. Anyhow, we didn't get much of a walk, but on the way back passed one of nature's many testaments to the wind in the area. Sorry Kansas, I think we've got you beat in the wind department.

Arriving back home, I took a parting shot of the peninsula. It still looks like a nice day for a walk.