Tour of the Catlins - day 2

7th February 2009

We left our little bach and our first stop was Lake Wilkie. It was quite fresh first thing, so we had a brisk 30 minute walk, following the side of the lake. The walk shows the unique succession of forest development from lake edge to mature forest. The surrounding forest was mirrored in the water as it was very calm.

We made a stop at a café called the Whistling frog, and had a hot chocolate to warm us up. Along from the café was McLean Falls, another spectacular waterfall after a walk through native bush. This took us 40 minutes and with the walking and hot chocolate we slowly began to warm up. The falls were quite fast as we had had some rain the previous evening.

We followed the southern scenic route on to Niagara, passing lots of little fishing villages and wooden bridges spanning the rivers. Arriving at Porpoise Bay the weather was beginning to clear, we could see the blue sky slowly creeping in from the sea towards the land. We stopped on the headland, watching the surfers battle against the strong waves, and ate our lunch.

Just around the corner from Porpoise Bay is Curio Bay which is one the world’s most extensive and best preserved examples of a Jurassic forest. We were lucky to arrive when it was low tide when it is easiest to see the fossils. There is a small population of endangered Yellow Eyed Penquins here, there were a few sitting on the rocks posing for the cameras. They are moulting at the moment so can’t swim until their new feathers are through.

The rocks look like ordinary rocks until you take a closer look and you can see that they were trees! Whole tree trunks can be seen and also tree stumps and flakes of wood. A volcano erupted and covered the forest with silica which turned the trees to stone. This happened very quickly in a matter of months and so preserved the forest as it fell. Mud and silt covered it over and when the sea levels went up they washed away the mud and silt to reveal the petrified forest we can see today.

The sun made an appearance and we had a couple of hours mooching about in the rock pools and sand.

We carried on around the coast to Slope Point the southern-most point of the South Island, we could see Stewart Island and the Bluff from here and the coast line stretching on around. There is a sign on the cliff edge saying how far it is to the South Pole and the Equator from here.

Before making our way back onto the Southern Highway to Invercargill, we made one more stop at Waipapa Point. It had turned out to be a lovely, sunny, calm afternoon. There is a lighthouse here which we had a look around before heading down to the beach to step over yet another seal, flicking sand on himself! There were banks of wild crocus which filled the air with their heady scent. There was also a lot of Bull Kelp, the ocean has forests of it which divers like to swim through. It is really tough resembling leather.

After a day of seeing something wonderful around every corner, we got to Invercargill, not a particularly glamorous place, to our digs for the night. We were staying at the Victoria Railway Hotel. (www.hotelinvercargill.com).