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The Catlins We moved on our journey bidding farewell to Edel in Invercargill which is a large non-descript city on the southern end of the south island. She was heading for Stewart Island which is just off the bottom of the south island and we were headed for a place called the Catlins. Lots of people we have met along the way and in NZ advised us to take a trip here so we decided to take their advice and the next two nights were to be spent one of the least populated parts of NZ and the days were to be filled visiting so many sights and seeing lots of wildlife.
If I could describe the Catlins to you in one sentence for those of you in Ireland I would could only say that it is like Donegal in many ways – scenery, weather, isolation, different, slow paced but with some incredible wildlife!
Our first afternoon was spent visiting Waipapa Point, a beautiful little sandy beach with a wooden lighthouse plonked on its western edge. It was charming but the chilly weather started to creep in here and I was pretty cold! Next we moved further east
to a place called Slope Point. This is the most southern point of the southern island of NZ. We hopped out of the spaceship and took a 15minute walk through some farmer’s field to find a cute little yellow sign marking the spot! Of course the cheesy photos were taken!
Our last stop of the afternoon after a lot of driving that day all the way from Milford Sound was in a place called Curio Bay. It was here we got our first glimpse of the fantastic wildlife down here – in the form of yellow eyed penguins! We had heard of these little fellas but actually getting to see them in real life was a treat! Each evening about 2 hours before sunset they return from sea to feed their chicks that are hiding in nests along tree lined bays. So at about 4.30pm we were there to witness three of them on their way back, stomachs full, calling aloud to the chicks among the trees. The conservation dept. here has strict laws about viewing them; you must keep 10metres distance as they are very shy and will retreat to the sea rather than feed the little ones.
So we kept our distance of course. They didn’t rush at returning and would waddle a bit, stop, spread their wings out, stop, look around, hop across a rock or two, stop. Their behaviour really was curious! The other pretty cool thing about this bay is that it has what is known as a petrified forest. All along the rocks here are pieces of wood or tree stumps that form part of the rocks themselves. This is because millions of years ago there was actually a forest here! It was weird looking at what appeared to be normal seashore rocks but then seeing rings of wood or long trunks. Interesting!
After our viewing of the penguins we headed to the campsite to make dinner to find that the kitchen there was crap, the winds were high, and there are NO fast food options so we made our dinner freezing at the side of the spaceship. It was definitely an experience! Fair play to John though, he did all the standing outside and all that!
On our second day we visited a place called the Mc Lean Falls. It was a short hike to a secluded waterfall among trees.
It was really beautiful and it is one of the only tourist attractions on our trip that we actually had to ourselves so that was nice, if not a bit romantic! A little further along the road we stopped with the intention of doing a tunnel walk through an old train tunnel that was built in the 1800s. When I got to the tunnel I got a freaky feeling and wouldn’t do it. Check out the photos, it looks scary right. After this we had a terrible lunch at a café next to the falls before attempting to visit a little hippy museum. Unfortunately it was closed for renovations but it’s a campervan on the side of the road with a weird and wonderful take on life, art etc. A pity but we took some photos of the outside anyway!
Our next stop was at the beautiful Nugget Point – a cliff side walk looking down on fur seals, sea lions and elephant seals before reaching a lighthouse that looms out over the sea. Below are little nuggets of rocks and the views are spectacular. There were lots of sea birds too. The water was a turquoise colour and
it was like a postcard! We then got our second glimpse of the penguins at roaring bay just next to nugget point. Here the dept. of conservation has a little penguin hide built so that we humans can be concealed and stay away! This time we saw even more and spotted them surfing the waves in. They again took their time but it seemed to be because they were waiting on each other this time! One of them even got lost at the other end and his mate swam right across the beach to direct him/her back, it was cool to see how they interact and look after each other. I do wonder though – with all their dilly dallying coming out of the water, do the poor chicks get any food at all?! Our second night was at a little beach called Kaka Point with a proper kitchen this time! Dinner, film and bed. The Catlins didn’t disappoint, if anything they were a good reminder of home!
Dunedin From the Catlins we moved up along the eastern coast towards the university town of Dunedin. We arrived there to take a quick trip to wildlife and scenery must
in the region called the Otago Peninsula. We took a drive around the coast stopping at a nice beach with sea lions, trying to visit NZ’s only castle (to realise it was a ridiculous price so we didn’t), taking back gravel roads through valleys. We were going to visit a more penguins but again this was a paying system so we just did the free stuff! We returned to the city to find it bustling. It was graduation day and there were lots of young people walking the streets in great form. We had a walk around taking in the happiness. It felt very comfortable here and I think it would be very easy to hang out here for a long time.
Our next stop was at Cadburys World for an oul tour. We arrived just as the last one started but managed to blag our way in. We had a really annoying guide (she was talking like she was on Barney or High Five, kids shows for those of you who don’t know) and we couldn’t take photos. We were told how they make chocolate, given chocolate bars and melted chocolate to taste, saw a tonne of chocolate
be released out of a big container, had a brief walk around and it was over. Pretty abysmal really. And the chocolate here is not that nice FYI! John did ask her do they put anti melting stuff into the chocolate because someone mentioned to us that this is the reason it tastes not so nice but no she said they didn’t need it here that it was to do with the type of milk! And guess why our Cadburys and the Cadburys in the UK is good – all made with Irish milk :D
After our chocolate and crazy kids TV programme guide we decided to go to the cinema to see the Avengers. Lots of people said it was good and it was! That night we kipped in a motor camp out the road that we were lucky to find. John tried to show me how to play a bit of table tennis but I quickly frustrated him (oops)!
The next morning we headed further north to a small fishing village called Moeraki. It’s a tiny, sleepy little place that’s famous for the “Moeraki Boulders”. These are very strange indeed. Lots of large, spherical boulders line
the beach. They look like what I would describe dragon eggs to look like, if dragons were real of course! I tried to read up on them but it’s very jargony. Basically they are large collections of sedimentary rock that have been exposed due to the erosion by the sea. But they really do look like something from a sci fi film! We also hopped by a little penguin hide recommended to us by a Scottish couple we met in Fiji. We didn’t see penguins this time because we were too early but we saw lots and lots of sea lions up close. They are MASSIVE! Really wouldn’t fancy getting into a fight with one of them!
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