Queenstown to Dunedin via Catlins Coast

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Today was always going to be a long day when it came to travelling. We were up at 6am, to get the bus at 6.45, with a change and then on to the Catlins Coaster bus that would get into our next major city - Dunedin at 7.30pm.

As with all the buses though, the time flies by. It's a combination of awesome scenery, wild life and the ramblings of the bus driver. Who in the most case was an ex mental patient nurse called Brian.

First stop on the Catlins Coaster (CC) bus was Waipapa point. This boasts a fur sea lion colony and a pretty neat lighthouse. At this point the next piece of land 3,000 km away (apart from Stewart Island) is Antartica, and as you looked into the distance you could see a very foreboding darkness in the sky and no light at all. It was a pretty erie view. Nearly as erie as the wind that hammers this part of the coast line.

As we got nearer and nearer to this point you could see that all the south facing sides of any tree that was over a metre high have all lost there leaves. This is simply down to the wind. There is a picture (DSC00906) that shows this.

The Catlins Coast is an area the same size of Luxembourg, but it only has 1,000 people inhabiting it. Much of the trade along these parts is geared to the buses and big signs boast the next place name, but if you blink you'll miss them. A lot of the towns round here were bustling back in the late 19th century due to logging, but after all the wood went so did the people.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Curio Bay, Curio as in curious as when the first people came across this they found what looked like to be wood right on the beach. Upon closer inspection it was actually wood that had been volcanised by ash and had then turned in to stone. These were the remnants of a forest that existed here 18 million years ago. It may not be interesting to some, but I found it quite hard to comprehend that wood, had turned into stone.

On the same beach as we were walking along, Brian the guide/driver, suddenly stopped as he realised we were only metres away from a young Yellow Eyed penguin. We got back to a distance of 10 metres and it got up and moved around for us. It was only just under a year old and had been born back in September. These are the rarest penguin species int he world, only 5,000 in existence and they live along this stretch of coast line up to Dunedin.

We also stopped at a place called Lake Wilkie where you can witness the growth of an emrging forest. As the lake declines, msoss grows at the side of the lake and this allows young Ridu and Matai trees to grow, when they get to a certain size, they topple over on there own wait, die and release nutrients into the soil. This in turn then allows other species to grow and as such within the next 300 years the lake will no longer be there.

The final stop on the coastal tour was to the Lost Gypsy Gallery. This place was really mental. The guy sits in his work shop making stuff from wire and then you can turn them on and off. There is this big sheep thing outside, where the bones fo a sheep are constructed to sit on a bicycle and then you turn a handle and it baas. Seriously lost the plot this dude. On the back of the sheep thing is another set of bones of something else, the bus driver said he has tried to work out what that is, but has neever been able to figure it out.

We got in to Dunedin at about 7.30pm, checked into the hostel. The YHA here is a grand affair, massive old stately home really, and after sorting ourselves out we went to meet Danny at his hostel along with some of their mates to go out for some drinks. Safe to say I have a slight hangover this morning 😉

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