Sheep, worms and waterfalls

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The Catlins. Miles of open road with nothing but sheep to punctuate the view. I think the ratio of sheep to man is now around 10:1, which sounds high to most of the world. Here it only recently dropped from around 32:1. I don’t know why this is amazing, or why we found flocks of sheep so constantly surprising and worthy of being pointed out. But it’s rare you feel so out-numbered by animals. Thank God they’re stupid, or we could all be ruled by despotic tag-nut clad flossies by now. Well, in New Zealand at least.

But there's more to The Catlins than sheep. Mainly it's rolling countryside but we also discovered an amazing wild camping spot, which was basically a patch of grass down a twisty dirt road, overlooking an isolated beach framed by soaring cliffs. It was pretty awesome. We almost had it all to ourselves, bar a couple of other hardy motorcaravanners and a plucky Kiwi, who had driven his 4x4 across the sand, trumping our spot.

The Catlins also has a quite spectacular waterfall and the less spectacular Jack's Blow Hole. Unsure what this last one was, we traipsed up a giant hill to a spot where the sea flows in under the cliffs. When it comes in fast enough, water is shot up through the hole, although when we visited the walk was more impressive than anything Jack had to offer. As we descended back to the van a storm blew in over the ocean, casting a twin rainbow over the bay. That was much more like it.

From the Catlins we pushed onto Bluff for some of the famous oysters. I'm no big fan of the gloopy sea food, but Em loves Canadian oysters, which she patriotically assures me are much nicer than the huge ones served in New Zealand. Here, at the most southerly point on the South Island, the weather was grim, with horizontal winds whipping rain into us and threatening to capsize the van.

Thankfully the weather improved by the time we drove north-west to Gemstone Beach. This was a big hit with jeweller Em. The beach is literally littered with gemstones, although you'd be lucky to find any worth a lot of cash money. You can find sapphires though, so Em scoured the sand while I put myself to use making the tea. You need a warming brew after sifting the icy water for stones.

Our next night's rest was another wonderfully secluded spot, at Lake Monowai. To get to the "site" you have to drive for a good half hour along the sort of gravel road that makes Cambodian infrastructure seem advanced. Rattled but in good spirits we manoeuvred the van through some mud, positioning it right beside the water. Some German campers tried to steal our spot, but luckily for us they didn't get their beach-towels down quick enough.

From here we drove north, hugging the edge of the Fiordland National Park, which encompasses the famous Milford Sound. The scenery turned spectacular once again, with vast granite mountains surrounded by thousands of lakes. Look up the area on a map and it looks like the land's leaking. There's only one road up to Te Anau, another tongue-twisting town, and from here it's a good two-hour drive to Milford Sound. Because of the mountains, once you reach Milford you have to turn around and retrace your steps all the way back to Te Anau in order to get anywhere else. So, anticipating an amazing but gruelling drive the next day, we stopped off at Te Anau.

This was no hardship, as the town shores kiss a gorgeous lake. We took a trip on the lake to the nearby Glowworm Caves. A storm had recently wiped out quite a few of the little show-offs, but we still found it amazing. It was so grave-dark in the caves that as our boat was pulled through and we craned our necks upwards, the worms lit the ceiling of the cave like stars in the night-sky.

The next day we drove to Milford Sound, along the most magical road, probably in the world. It's all waterfalls, mountains and precipitous, bum-clenching corners. But that spectacular, shit-scary story will have to wait until next time.

Love you, bye!
x

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Photos

The Catlins
Wild camping. Wild

Jack's Blowhole
Better view on the way back down

Did you know NZ had beaches like this?
We didn't

Gemstone Beach
Searching for sapphires

Home-cooked Bluff oysters
A poor-man's New Brunswick oyster

Going to the Glow Worms
Sorry, it was too dark to shoot inside. And forbidden!

Road the local Chinese restaurant is on
Is that okay?

Comments

[Matt]

Looking good
Hi mate, Good to catch up on what you have been up to. New Zealand really appeals for a trip one day and you have certainly confirmed that it would be worth going, if only for the local art! Do they drive on the correct side of the road over there? Matt

[MarkandEmilie]

Sorry for not answering sooner Matt, they do indeed drive on the right side of the road. The right side. They have other weird road rules but don't let that put you off, it's boss!