The Catlins
After finding some excellent beer (long overdue over my stay in NZ!) in Invercargill, we headed East from there along the South coast. Stopped at Slope Point, the farthest Southerly point on the South island.
Then on to Curio bay, home of a Yellow Eyed penguin colony, various other wildlife and a jurassic petrified forest. Penguins are hilarious to watch, just walking over the rocks.
Got fully soaked in the afternoon watching a couple of them when out of nowhere it started pouring rain. After that we found a hostel, overlooking a neighboring bay and dried off.
Went back to the cove in the evening when we saw 10 or so of the penguins and a sea lion. While watching the penguins a rainbow appeared out over the cove…
The best thing about all this is there are hardly any tourists here at all, this isn’t on any of the main bus routes so far fewer travelers come here. This leads to less facilities but remote destinations, while watching the penguins and sea lion we the only people at the beach.
Next morning we drove through the rest of the Catlins and on to Dunedin.
Then on to Cathedral caves, where we waded through the bay at low tide and explored the two inter connected caves there. Really high caves, I guess that’s why they are called cathedral…
The last stop in the Catlins was Nugget point, with incredibly inviting looking water which the seals were taking full advantage of.
All in all the South coast is great, only downside is the seemingly constant strong wind and ever changing weather. It’s off the tourist track, full of great wildlife, rocky coastline and beaches like this…
Tags: New Zealand, Travel
Adam
The landscape, the ocean, the wildlife – simply amazing!!!
NZ looks and sounds absolutely amazing! We’re planning on doing a gap year in a few years when Amy finishes grad school and your posts have been a great inspiration for us.
What camera do you use? It takes great photos (I’m sure you have something to do with it too;-) ).
Anyway, thanks for the great posts, we’re really enjoying them.
Glad you like the blog and pics, and great that you want to do your own rtw, everyone should do a trip like this! I’m using a Canon 720IS and I shoot at 3mp, I love the camera.