The largest gold mines in New Zealand are located near Palmerston. Unfortunately, the tour on the 200-tonne monster trucks is fully booked. Once again, it’s just as well: shortly afterwards I’m at the Moeraki Boulders. Once submarine boulders that have crystallised over the millennia. Round stone balls on the beach. Lots of tourists.
The beach is beautiful. 200 metres wide, fine sand, gently sloping. The wind is even nicer. Very laminar, 18 knots, side-onshore. Perfect. Kite out on the beach and off we go. Directly in front of the boulders, I make a few really great crash landings after unsuccessful jumps. At least jumping is now possible with the Vegas.
After almost an hour on the water, I lose my board and just can’t get back to it. Luckily it washes ashore a little later. I take a break and then go out again. I had seen a dolphin somewhere around here earlier. The wind has died down and shifted to onshore. A wave overtakes me with a little more speed. Result: a hard belly landing in low water. Enough.
Does anything bother me? Nope. I’m travelling alone wherever I want to go. Simply enough for me. My MP3 is screaming a bit. I have to play the same gigantic record all day long: Kettcar, Von Spatzen, Tauben, Dächern und Menschen. Everything is good. The wind plays in golden wheat fields.
I drive on to Oamaru, a beautiful, sleepy, old and somewhat morbid harbour town. Again, old buildings, many empty and dilapidated. Oamaru became famous for its two penguin colonies. I visit the first colony in the afternoon. There’s not much to see. The penguins only return from the sea in the evening, and you can’t get closer than 200 metres to the beach. But one mum climbed 100 metres up the cliffs. She raises her chicks right next to the path.
Later I look for another good beach, I want to go kitesurfing again. No go. There’s not a single beach in the whole of Oamaru, just steep cliffs and gravel banks. 10 kilometres to the south is Kakanui Beach, which is actually quite beautiful, but a peninsula covers the wind in front of it. I didn’t like the name anyway.
Back to the hostel. Tibetan prayer flags hang in the garden. The hostel manager, who is quite drunk, is reading a specialised magazine: The Ufologist. She talks all the time about things that don’t even interest her. There are empty bottles of alcohol on a high board around the living room, neatly arranged and obviously regularly dusted. 100 cats roam around.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.