Tekapu and Many Stops to Dunedin

Our last day of our whirlwind trip around the South Island began with watching the sun rise in Tekapu. What a beautiful sight that was! The sun was peaking over the mountains, and steam was rising off of the water (quite a cold morning). Our sun rise was cut a bit short when one of our group realized they dropped their phone at our last campground.

Sun rise in Tekapu

The sun light peeking over the mountains 

After (thankfully) finding his phone at the campsite, we began making our way back to Dunedin to hopefully make it in time to say goodbye to Dimitri. Along the way, we made quite a few stops to conclude our tour. Our first stop was along the fossil trail to see some of the Maori cave drawings. Many of them are quite faded and hard to see, but after learning a bit about the Maori culture while here, it was so cool to see them. 

A guide to the drawings

The actual drawings

 After the cave drawings we made a stop at the elephant rocks, the filming location for the epic final battle of the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Molly was pretty excited about this place (so many rocks!) and everyone had a great time 

The Elephant Rocks

"This is our new album cover"

"Action shot!"

Molly, Queen of the Rocks

After spending a good amount of time playing on the behemoth sized rocks, we piled back into the car and made our last stop before Dunedin: the Moeraki Boulders. Maori legend explains these boulders on the beach as washed up calabashes, sweet potatoes, and eel baskets from the legendary canoe, the Araiteuru, that wrecked at Shag Point. 

The famous Moeraki Boulders

A broken boulder

Finally, it was back to Dunedin to unpack the car and say farewell to our dear friend (and my flatmate) Dimitri before he headed back to America. That was beginning of many farewells, and the end of my exploration around the South Island. But hopefully I'll be back in New Zealand in the near future!