Blowholes and Sea lions

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Rach...

We headed further south from Dunedin to an area called the Catlins, passing through green, rolling countryside which, to me, had the character of mid Wales. However, the good weather did not come with us. As we put on our walking boots and rain proofs in preparation for visiting the monumentally disappointing Lake Wilkie, I felt a chilly dampness in the air of the kind I associate with our holidays in Llanfendigaid! The overcast sky, and an intense, penetrating drizzle made me wish that we could somehow ‘magic’ the all Wales gang over here for a night, and have a good ol’ knees up that evening. It took longer to get our walking boots on than it did to complete the allegedly thirty minute walk around Lake Wilkie. To the lake’s credit, it was surrounded by lush and mature vegetation, all rather exotic, and in no way reminiscent of Wales! Also the bird song here is something else. Most pleasing so far has been the ‘R2D2 bird’. No idea what it is (it’s the size of a thrush and has a yellowy-green throat) but it can belt out all sorts of calls, which it rounds up each time with its accomplished R2D2 impression.

In the course of the day we visited several further waterfalls: The Matai Falls, the Horse Shoe Falls and finally The Purakanui Falls, where an Italian couple seemed to be viewing the falls whilst wearing no trousers. (I don’t know why. They must have been cold.) Each waterfall was very picturesque in its own way, and had they been in the British Isles, then we’d have ah-ed and coo-ed at all of them. But I find myself (unfairly) expecting everything antipodean to be super-sized and awesome, and I ought to stop that. The falls were all lovely, really, and had the weather been better, I am sure the day would have been a classic.

The final site of our tour was the best, though. We parked up, and began a walk over cliff top pastures to ‘Jack’s Blowhole’. We don’t know who Jack was, or what feature of his anatomy deserved commemoration in this natural feature, but it must have been impressive. The blowhole was 200 meters from the sea, and its bore was wide, steep and 50 meters deep, at least. Though the surrounding pastures were smooth grassland, the sides of the hole were lined with dark, thick vegetation, like some kind of tropical bum fuzz. We could hear the sea water churning below us, and awaited the salty ejaculate…Perhaps for the best, it never came. We returned to the campervan, and called it a day. Base camp for the night would be the lovely town of Pounawea, and its sweet little seafront campsite. We had supper in the van, and an early lights-out…

The next morning was fine, and sandwiches were packed with alacrity and a spirit of optimism. The sun was back! Our plan was simply to head out in full walking gear and get as far around the bay as possible. We took the country road to New Haven, and from there the fine sandy beach rolled out before us to a picturesque headland in the distance. After a few minutes walk we began to see sea lions bathing on the sands. As we got closer, we realized just how big they were. And not only were there fully grown ones, but also families with pups too. A pair of mid-sized ones were chesting up to one another and rolling their necks in the classic sea lion manner, and you can’t ask any more of them than that. What a sight! Either consciously or unconsciously, Ian’s voice took on a low, breathless timbre, and I realized he was ‘going Attenborough’ on me. Then he started the video function on the camera, and if we can, we’ll load Ian’s new ‘Life on Earth’ footage onto the blog (or maybe not!).

The day involved eating our sandwiches on the headland with stunning views of the deserted bay below us. Finally we retraced our footsteps, and made the long walk back home very tired and very content. All in all, this was one of the very best days of our odyssey so far.

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Photos

Rachael is overwhelmed by the Matai falls
Cooo

Ian displays his awe of the Horseshoe falls
Gasp

Rachael feels slightly better about the Purakanui falls
Hmmm

Rachael on the rim of the orifice that is Jack's Blowhole
Very fuzzy vegetation isn't it?

Comments

[MamandDad]

Now that was a really nice story! - Encore!

[Ian n Rach]

Jack's blowhole made us titter too
How we laughed all the way to the rim I can tell you. We debated a bit whether to put any saucy language (ooeerr missus) into the blog, but we thought this one was too good to miss! We were making up the phrase to use all the way up to and back from it - bloggers eh? We need to get a life!