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Published: March 8th 2012
You could say that the weather has been horrendous down south pretty much all the time. We were quite disappointed but still loved it in a rain, cold, wind and the fog 😊 You would think its going to be a winter soon!
Invercargill, Bluff - rather disappointing. No mountains, not much to see here. We saw couple of dolphins though. We were considering turning back north, straight to Mt Cook to try to get better weather but went to Dunedin instead. Curio and Porpoise Bay were really cool, full of surfers and dolphins. The area is also known for fur seals, NZ seelions and yellow-eyed penguins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-eyed_Penguin and guess what! We saw one, it was so so cute! You cannot get close to them though as they are protected.
We prayed for better weather...but nothing was changing! 😞 We stopped at McLean Falls, Tautuku Bay, Purakaunui Falls which are apparently the most photographed falls in NZ. Well, the falls were wide, I give you that, but I must say we saw better ones...
Nugget Point was beautiful with a lighthouse, seals and NZ sealions. We had a sun for about 15 mins, I was going crazy at
this point due to the bad weather! Also the stress of planning my return journey was getting worse.
We found a shower outside near a Lake Waihola camp site and we decided to go for it. It was about 12 degrees Celsius outside people! We are so brave! We liked a place near Millenium Track near the river Taieri. It was very peaceful there and Lukas caught an eel! We let it back though.
Dunedin is very metropolitan town and we liked it very much. It is a place to see! My camera broke round this time which means that I am depending on Lukas, totally!! The lens got stuck and I cannot do anything. 😞
Moeraki Boulders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_boulders is another attraction here. It is lovely at 7 am with the sunrise 😊 Made a picture for you.
I bought a flight ticket for the 3rd April, so I will be back in Manchester on the 4th. Lukas will stay for a little longer. It transpires that we will be actually working over here as well and it will be on the vineyard! Hmm Mud House near Waipara. My credit cards don't work over here...not a
good news for me and my bank as they will have to see me when I get back!
We swam in the river Ahuriri and headed towards Mt Cook, the highest mountain in NZ. The view, when driving towards the mountains, was just amazing! Lake Pukaki has got a distinctive blue colour which is creatted by glacial flour, the extremely finely ground rock particles from the glaciers. We did couple of walks there including Sealy Tarns (4hrs), Kea Point, Hooker and Tasman Valley, and Blue Lakes. The weather was beautiful again and I liked it very much! Mt Cook and surrounding glaciers are awesome. Not much things in the village so we carried on towards Lake Tekapo.
We had a bit of misunderstanding in Fairlie with a local camp site manager who called the police at us, believe it or not!!! He acused us of using showers and not paying for them. Well that wasn't the case and all was solved but hey I tell ya, the first time in three months when I was really angry!
Among other things, I will miss NZ rivers. They are so clear and turquiose like for example the Rakaia River.
You can just look at it forever! We passed Darfield and were considering driving towards Arthur's Pass but decided against it, as the weather forecast wasn't great and we wanted the sun and Kaikoura 😊
That is where we are heading now and will start working on the vineyard next week - I hope I'll survive!
Our car is having a MOT test right now, so hopefully it will be fine. Fingers crossed!
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Simon Henshaw
non-member comment
Hi Aneta, sorry to read you didnt enjoy Invercargill. Yes, we are pretty flat and the weather can be a bit rough but I would compare the weather to Wellington - lots of rain - at least it keeps the grass growing. I hope you saw the Tuatara at the Southland Museum, and adjacent Queens Park is big and beautiful. If you like birdwatching then the rivers and estuaries near the city are great. Hopefully you will come back this way another day. All the best for your travels - Simon from Venture Southland, the tourism agency for the Southland region.