first time outside of dunedin!

okay i'm officially over my problems with my security guard job at the otago museum!

ms. rhonwyn having me do this basket delivery job across the country is the best job ever!

i rented a car today which work paid for!!!

as of this morning i hit the open road, and finally left dunedin! this is the first time i've left the city since arriving there nearly a year ago... i'm so primed it isn't funny.

the one problem is keeping it straight in my mind that i've got a job to do, and thus this isn't a vacation. it feels like my quest across BC... only this time i'm going across a whole country!

making it harder to keep my mind on the task at hand is that well i'm not sure how to do my job. i have to get rid of these boring baskets ms. rhonwyn gave me, but she doesn't say how. making it worse i can't call her as per the instructions she gave me...

so i'm trying to follow those directions as best i can. having plotted out all the locations and places she wants me to go, and try to hit them in order so i don't have to back track, my first stop is the southren most city of invercargill...

however on route i discovered a couple little detours, and since it's taken me a year to get here, and there's no knowing when work will send me on such a trip again i figured why not check them out!

Location: Catlins

Baskets Left: 3

the area between dunedin and invercargill is called the catlins and it's a very empty expanse of new zealand wilderness. which is what attracted my attention...

driving by i noticed a sign of the department of conservation's for a falls walk. now i happen to know it's not fall until march or april. we're in the middle of summer!

than it occurred to my tiny brain that's not what they were referring too. i couldn't figure out what it was though. so i pulled into the parking lot and figured i should investigate.

immediately the splendor of the forest captivated me. forests tend to kick in my saurian instincts, one of the reasons i enjoy so much living in the botanic garden. i felt as though this was where a dinosaur was meant to live ideally...

it's just so much like the mesozoic that was.

it really won't be much of a stretch of the imagination to expect any number of prehistoric inhabitants to emerge for a place like this...

present company included of course.

the only problem with feeling my inner dinosaur awaken was i wanted to wander into the forest a bit. thing is this is a department preserve, and you can't just have people wander off the path to their hearts content...

than again i'm not a person, and to be honest i have a better impact sense than humans. i won't lie though. it's not as much better than it could be. growing up with humans in a urban area has dulled my low impact walking skills somewhat. more in that i didn't learn them properly...

yet looking around quickly no one was around, and if i didn't practise i'd never learn...

man it was fun wandering into the thick of the fern forest. this was a very refreshing experience. one that most dinosaurs would enjoy.

fern forests like this are pretty rare today due to the evolution of flowering plants in the cretaceous. i bet if you started a travel agency for dinosaurs to take their vacation you could make a few bucks plugging forests like this!

i put aside those enterprising thoughts, and just savoured the forest scape around me.

after my fill of the forest i figured i should go find out what this trail leads to.

so i wandered back to the path. as i walked down it i drew closer to a familiar sound...

water...

that's what the sign had meant. duh! water fall!!!

i love water falls! their like nature's fountains! i do love my fountains!

taking in the interplay of gravity and water for a while i finally decided it was time to get this show on the road...

so i walked back to the car, and started back on my quest south.

a few kilometres down the road yet another majestic sight unveiled itself on the horizon. so i pulled over for a quick look...

to my surprise there was yet another department of conservation sign marking this area too. have to say they have a good sense of taste when it comes to marking stuff so far!

it was the ocean. i love the ocean as much as i love fountains... i think it's cause there wasn't much water in drumheller or alberta where i grew up.

what made this spot of ocean so special was how much you could see...

i could see the next 30 minutes of driving from this spot, and all the ocean beside it!

so far in my trip out of dunedin i'd seen two awesome things. i was still on course for the work side of the outing, and these two scenic stop overs had only cost me an hour.

i still had a whole country to go. it was going to be awesome i thought... i mean hey what could go wrong?

to be continued...