... to Doctor's Point, Waitati

Labour Weekend is the last long weekend in NZ before the Christmas hols. I thought to myself, I could go home to HB - but I had just been there in the Oct hols - or I could go further afield. (There is no point going anywhere in driving range of Auckland because the traffic will add hours and hours and hours to your journey.) My cousin Kelly and I did a bottom of the South Island road trip a few years ago and I had always wanted to go back to Oamaru, so I booked a flight to Dunedin, a rental car, three night's accommodation in Oamaru and a day off work.

If I had taken the direct route between Dunedin airport and Oamaru would have been 140km, and less than two hours. I took the indirect route and it took more than six hours.

My first stop was Doctor's Point. I had never heard of this place, but saw the sign and turned off from west from Waitati got to the end of the road, literally, and discovered a beauty! The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the sand was so fine.

The estuary is Blueskin Bay. I have a long ago whanau connection to Blueskin Bay as my great great great grandfather, Matt Miller, married a young woman from Blueskin Bay. Matt arrived in Oamaru in 1852 with some sheep (and his daughter - my great, great grandmother Margaret - after his wife and a second daughter had died in Geelong, Victoria) for Mr McMaster. I like to think that he and Margaret may have visited Blueskin Bay back in the day.

I have since seen on the www that even further round the beach at Canoe Beach there are some caves. It's a beautiful part of NZ that was spectacular on the sunny Spring day I was there. 

Coming back through Waitati, I stopped to photograph the first of many war memorials I saw. This part of the South Island has a lot of war memorials.