The Fossil Trail

What a great day of exploring!  We drove to Oamaru, a Victorian-style town with many limestone buildings, interesting shops, and beautiful seaside scenery.  It also hosts a large colony of the world’s smallest penguins, the Little Blue Penguins.  At dusk the penguins come ashore to find their nests and feed their young, and it’s said to be quite a sight.  Although we didn’t get to see the penguins, one highlight for the girls was riding a penny farthing—the old-fashioned bicycle with the huge front wheel.  Fortunately, the bike was stationary, as neither the girls nor I could fully reach the pedals!

Just outside Oamaru begins the Vanished World Fossil Trail, a long stretch of road along which many fossil sites are located.  We spent the afternoon wandering along this trail and stopping to look at some of the fossils, including a 26-million year old jaw of a Baleen whale that was preserved right in the limestone cliffs.  Glenn remarked that he’d never seen a fossil out in the open like that (though it had a protective case around it).  Most fossils are brought into a museum setting, so seeing it where it was actually found put it and the area around it into a different context.

At the Vanished World Center, the docent talked with us about how common whale fossils are in New Zealand, and then told us where we could go to pick up some limestone to dig in for our own small fossils.  It’s a place about 6 kilometers from the Center called Earthquakes.  As we were walking along the trail, I couldn’t help but question the wisdom of hiking under huge limestone boulders in a place called Earthquakes, but the sheep seemed to get along there OK, so up we went to view another whale and get some sample rocks.

We haven’t broken the rocks apart yet to see what’s there, but we can see plenty of tiny fossils on the surface.  The docent at the Center also gave the girls each a nice sized chunk of limestone with some larger fossils visible, so we’ll have a fun time excavating those when we get back to Masterton.  

Fortunately, we have jettisoned our plan to go all the way south to Dunedin.  Though that would have been a fun destination for me, it would have meant much more driving and much less meandering around looking at things that interested us.  I'm glad that we've allowed this trip to be agenda-free and have just enjoyed what each day has brought.