We left Twizel and the Mt Cook area and headed back towards the coast on a road trip through the Otago region. The route is a little less traveled because many travelers continue on to Queenstown. This is one of the longer driving days so we made sure to plot out a few stops along the way to get out of the car and stretch our legs.
Otago Region’s Best Road Trip Stops
Visit the Clay Cliffs
Make sure you have $5 in cash if you want to check this out. It’s right outside the town of Omarama. It’s on private land but the owner is good with people visiting as long as you put $5 in the honesty box and shut the gate behind you. We didn’t have any bills smaller than $20, but we really wanted to check it out. I may have pulled two five dollar bills back out of the box after putting in $20. It felt wrong, but we still paid double the amount.
The cliffs are part of an old fault line. They reminded me of the badlands, but nowhere near the scale. It was a great stop to get out of the car and wander around. Plus, the live-action Mulan movie had a few scenes filmed here.
Sample Some Otago Region Wine & Cheese
Our next two stops were food & drink related. We stopped in the wonderful town of Kurow for some of the famous Central Otago Pinot Noir. Pasquale Winery offers free tastings if you buy a bottle. It turned out to be a great deal and we had a bottle of wine to enjoy the next few days.
After sampling some wine, we found ourselves hungry for a snack. Whitestone Cheese Factory in Oamaru made sense for the next stop. We got the sampler and it was perfect. The Livingston Gold was some of the best cheese we had ever had.
See the Famous Moeraki Boulders
You can read the real story behind these giant boulders on their website here. We like to believe they are giant dinosaur or dragon eggs left on the beach when things went extinct just waiting to make their comeback. They really are strange when you see them. It is a group of giant boulders in just one small section of the beach. Some are broken open and you can see the strange yellow crystals inside.
From this spot, we finished the drive over hills and along the shoreline until we got to our spot in Dunedin. The total time was about six hours, including all the stops, so it was a well-spent day getting from the Mt Cook area to Dunedin.
