With a departure time of half 8 this morning, I was up at 7 and ended up having what was a very productive morning. Typing up a blog and maximising the free breakfast, I just about managed to post my blog before boarding the bus. I did get a bit of stick from the driver for being last one on though but the fact he was a Villa fan meant he soon stopped! With just 8 of us on the bus this morning, it was nice to see some familiar faces including some people I met back in Wanaka and also some people who I met in my hostel room in Dunedin as they just chucked us all in the same room.
After leaving the city of Dunedin, one of those places I wish I could stayed longer, we started our drive down to the Catlins to reach the more southern depths of New Zealand. It was naturally colder due to this, and after a fair drive we arrived at our first stop, Kaka Point. It was here we got a view of our next stop Nugget Point, although more spectacular was our timing to arrive as this rainbow came out spanning from the beach into the hills. We ended up spending a good half hour here in the end inside the local pub where we played some free pool.
Our next stop was a short drive further along to the aforementioned Nugget Point. Here we took a short walk to the lighthouse on the headland, en route seeing these seals on the rocks below. They were really cute making these squeaking noises and there were some little pups there as well. When reaching the lighthouse we got to see what was known as the nuggets which were rocks coming out of the water. I probably should have wrapped here more though as a t shirt just didn't cut it!
Driving back the way we came for a short way, we soon continued our drive south. To give you an idea of the roads we were going down, they were primarily single tracks made up of gravel. We were well and truly off the beaten track, and eventually after passing so many fields of sheep in the rugged surroundings we arrived at Cannibal Bay. Like many other places, this area was named for obvious reasons due to cannibalism which occurred here in the past with the Maori people. Today this area is a cracking place to see sea lions, and we weren't disappointed seeing many of these impressive creatures relaxing on the beach. Ensuring we didn't get too close, we took a walk down the other end of the beach to get different vantage points to see these amazing creatures.
From here our drive took us back onto proper roads to the small town of Owaka for lunch. I treated myself to burger and chips here as they had a special bottom bus menu and it was more appealing than supermarket food. It wasn't anything special however as everything just fell out the bun when picking it up. There wasn't really much else to do here and after lunch our drive took us to the Florence Hill lookout. This was another view lookout, although the more spectacular feature on a day with high tide was the spouting cave which spat out water through this hole, supposedly. We happened to come at low tide.
Continuing along the south coast, our next stop was the McLean falls where we went for a short walk through the beach forest to this impressive waterfall. Cascading down rocks to form something comparable to rapids, with a large backdrop in the background, the intriguing part was the water colour. The water was this swampy brown although our driver said that this wasn't because it was dirty, but because the recent rains had forced the oils and stuff from the plants surrounding the river to colour the water. To prove its freshness he drank it, which I swiftly followed and I felt fine afterwards. Apparently within around 48 hours the water will be clear again.
Our final stop of the day took us to Curio Bay, perhaps the most southerly point I will ever stand. As kiwi experience says, next stop Antarctica. The reason we stopped here was to go penguin watching to see the rarest penguin in the world, these ones with yellow feathers on their head. Like usual with me and wildlife I was unsuccessful after standing there in the cold for a good hour. The interesting thing with this area too though was the petrified forest which were these trees which over many years have fossilised into stone. They had the texture of trees but were literally these stones lieing on the ground!
It was then one last push to Invercargill from this point, stopping at the nearby cafe and hostel just before leaving to pick up a couple more passengers. We didn't end up arriving into Invercargill until gone half 6 in the end, although we got a decent sunset before arriving. Described as flat and suburban and one of the less enthralling places you will visit in NZ by my lonely planet guide, I kind of got the idea as we drove into this grid formation of streets before arriving at our hostel, Tuatara Backpackers in the city centre.
Cracking straight on with dinner which this evening was noodles which was a ready even including a fork to reduce washing up! I then quickly went out to find a cache as Invercargill is the most southern place I stay and I wanted to make my geocaching statistics look as impressive as possible. This also enabled me to briefly explore the city which had nothing interesting other than shops and a war memorial to speak of. I did however get a chocolate sundae for $1 though! The evening was spent inside the hostel, and it was interesting speaking to these people who went shark diving earlier in the day, seeing some of there videos! Before long it was time for bed in the weird hostel.
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