Catlins Coast & Southland

Bridget:

After leaving Dunedin, we had our sights set on doing a little camping on the coast near the Catlins.  The Catlins are kilometers & kilometers of rugged coast line, caves, windblown trees, and great surf spots.  We first hit up a spot called Jack’s Blowhole.  We had no idea of what to expect here… a giant whale that surfaces periodically? A large geyser?  Hmmmm.  Well, whatever it was, it sounded interesting, so it deserved a look.  After a 30 minute walk through more sheep pastures (and poo) we found Jack’s Blowhole:

Turns out it is a giant hole in the earth carved out by many years of waves crashing under the caves and into this giant abyss.    Very weird but very, very cool. 

After the hike back, we drove and drove down some long gravel roads before finally finding our camp site at a place called Punakaiki Bay.  Here is the view we had from our site:

That night it rained and rained and rained, so doing things like cooking or going to the “toilets” proved to be pretty rough.  The rain did not let up, either.  If anything, it came down even harder throughout the wee hours of the night.  We were so happy to wake up to a break in the clouds….and about 30 sheep outside our tent.    We packed up all our sopping wet camp gear and managed to get a few more pics of the beach before heading out again:

That day we decided to drive through Invercargill on our way up to the Fiordland National Park on the west coast.  Invercargill wasn’t much to look at, but we did drive down to a small fishing town called Bluff during our short stay.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are many, many miles away from our families and friends and geographically in a place that is so far away from most other countries.  Leave it to one little sign in Bluff, NZ to put it all back into perspective:

People traveling around NZ come down just to see that sign which kind of reminds me of the Southernmost Point in Key West, FL.  Bluff is the southernmost city on the South Island, but NZ actually has a third island south of that called Stewart Island.   Here is a picture of Craig looking out at it:

After a drying out the tent, doing some laundry, and getting a good night sleep, we were geared up and ready to see some mountains.  Onward, to the Fiords.

Next Stop:  Milford Sound