The Catlins

The Catlins is a stretch of coastline running along the south coast of the south island, between Dunedin and Invercargill

I really wanted to see the catlins by car, but when I looked into hiring one, it was so stupidly expensive, I couldn't justify the cost, so I had to go for a bus trip. :( The trip could have been done in a day from invercargill to Dunedin, but I opted to hop on and off over 3 days. It wasn't the way I'd hoped to see the catlins, but it was the next best thing I could think to do.

So we left invercargill in a little mini bus and drove to Waipapa lighthouse which was solar powered. Had a walk along the beach and saw some sealions. It's lovely coastline down there, really wild and rugged.

From there we headed to curio bay and porpoise bay. There's a petrified forest there from an old volcano which was pretty cool. Wierd to see these tree stumps, you'd think they were still wooden as they've still got rings in the trunks and you can see the grains in the wood, but they're all stone. The forest was covered in ash and water and preserved it. As the wood rotted, the gaps were filled with silica and hardened to stone. There were loads of hectors dolphins in porpoise bay. None were jumping, but you could see loads of fins popping out of the water. They're small little dolphins and their fins are round, a little bit like Mickey Mouse ears!

The next day we visited niagara falls (so named by a bloke with a sense of humour as it was little more than a few rocks in the river!) from there we headed up to McLean falls which was a really nice bush walk to get there and a very pretty waterfall. We got held up in a sheep traffic jam on the way to papatowai where I was staying - I'm so glad I've seen one of those since being in NZ! My accommodation for the night was in a nice hostel/house on top of a hill and I was the only one staying there so that was lovely. I had a tv and sofa to myself all evening and it was great!

Papatowai, where I stayed the second night, is home to this ace place called the lost gypsey caravan. The owned is an inventor and you can go inside this caravan for free and play with all the wind up contraptions he's built over the years, like the pleasant nose pincher, and other such devices. He also has a yard behind the caravan, filled with larger gadgets and gizmos like a bike-powered tv set and an organ that's got each key harnessed to some different device, like doorbells, cymbals, radios, an old operation game that buzzes and loads more, it's such a fab and quirky place, I loved it there!!

When I finally dragged myself away from the caravan, I headed down to the beach for a walk. Got picked up by the bus and headed to nugget point lighthouse which is a brilliant spot. The lighthouse is at the end of this little spit of cliff with loads of rocks jutting out of the water that give the place it's name. I loved it there, it was beautiful. Then we went to Roaring bay to look at the yellow eyed penguins waddling back in to shore.

From there it was onto Dunedin where I stayed the next day and went on the Speights brewery tour. I'd never been to a brewery before so it was pretty interesting, seeing how the oak barrels were originally made and the history and general beer making process, not to mention the tasting session at the end! :)

From Dunedin I went back to queenstown to meet Mikenna to get ready for the Routeburn track.