When borders are closed and the world is on pause, final exams are done after four years of Uni, and graduation a month away – what better time for mum and Chookie to have a good old Kiwi road trip? It’s time to explore.

Leaving Dunedin, we headed 20 minutes up the highway, “we took a right, we took a right turning” at Evansdale and headed along the Coast Road to the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum ruins at the Truby King Reserve. What a stunning spot. What a horrendous history. I’m grateful to have been born when I was, because in a different era, I might have ended up here. The criteria of the time meant that just being ‘difficult’ could result in a diagnosis of lunatic or mad. Shit, there’d be no room in today’s standard of ‘difficult’ women.

One of the asylum’s more famous residents wrote in her biography:

“The attitude of those in charge, who influenced the treatment, was that of reprimand and punishment, with certain forms of medical treatment being threatened as punishment for failure to ‘co-operate”.                                   

                                                                                               Janet Frame

From Seacliff we followed the Coast Road down the hill to Karitane and along the Waikouati River hitting the highway at Hawksbury just shy of the Evansdale Cheese factory which, unfortunately closed at 3pm. Unfortunate for them, they missed us – cheese fiends. From there we ventured back up the highway to take another right turn to head down Shag Point to – you get it, Shag Point and no, not renown for shagging but, hey I don’t know that it isn’t. what I do know and what we witnessed was Fur Seals, lots of them, lazing on the rocks, doing their fur seal thing. Sleeping, taking in the sun, doing what fur seals do.

So, after watching the fur seals do their fur seal thing, we then ventured north, back onto the highway, where normally I’d follow the road into Oamaru but no, at Deborah we continued north onto the Weston-Ngapara Road, and here is where my education began.

And it did. Let’s remind ourselves that I’m with Chookie, fresh out of a four-year degree that I never fully grasped, except for environmental studies. But ultimately, this kid has studied the geography of New Zealand, climatology, and the indigenous history of the land. I’m travelling with encyclopedia Chookie.

I reminded Chookie that I grew up here, but honestly, I never knew Māori rock art existed, or that it could be found so close to where I’d often travelled. But this is the thing about road trips: you learn stuff. Not only did I appreciate this specific history, but it also serves as a reminder that Māori place names highlight the characteristics of the landscape and guide those who wander through it. As in Papatowai (Land of the Forest).

The rest of the drive took us through Duntroon and along the banks of Lakes Waitaki and Aviemore, then back on the highway at Omarama. We arrived in Twizel just in time to pick up some dinner and a bottle of wine from the local Four Square before heading to our next three nights’ accommodation to rest up – day one done.