South Island, Part 2

Feb 24th and on to the Catlins:


We enjoyed a nice drive around the base of New Zealand through Invercargill to stock up on groceries for our two night stay in a self catering cottage on a farm. Our cabin is rather spacious with three bedrooms, tho none of them were particularly large and we discovered that our double bed was also not particularly comfortable. But more about that later.

We drove out to the coast to Curio Bay to see the dolphins (no sighting), the rare yellow eyed penguins (success! we saw a chick, which was almost adult size) standing next to a flax plant. This is in the petrified forest area which can be seen at low tide. Next down a long gravel road to visit the southernmost point of land in New Zealand. Good scenery here.

Back to our cottage to heat up the cooked chicken we had purchased and make a green salad – delicious meal. But we discovered that our refrigerator was not getting cold, so we packed our steak (tomorrow night’s dinner) and other things in our chilly bin with the ice that we had purchased. Lots of sand flies in this place – Chris is not happy. The owners of this place bought it two years ago and are working hard on bringing it back up to par, but they have some distance to go. She was very friendly but he was a bit strange. She noted that they had a herd of cattle and one of the cows disappeared the day before; they were hoping that she would calf OK but didn’t know where she was in their bush country. We thought it odd that he was hanging out in their home in the middle of the afternoon when they were having problems, but oh well. Sometimes we find it a challenge supporting our transpformer to set up the iPod player, but Dave is ingenious.

The morning brought rain and we decided to pull up stakes and head up to Dunedin a day early, our excuse being that the non-working refrigerator spoiled our food. There were several other problems that we also encountered; our hostess was gracious and emailed us later on in the day with an apology for non-working equipment. We did have a great steak and egg breakfast.

We found a very nice B&B on the Otago Peninsula and were absolutely astounded when we visited the Royal Albatross facility on the head of the peninsula at 5:30 that afternoon. The wind was blowing 40 + knots which albatross love and they were soaring back and forth right in front of our viewing place – WOW! These guys have about a 10 foot wingspan. This is the only location in the world where you can see albatross nesting on the mainland. Quite a treat; we were really glad we left the Catlins a day early.

On the 26th we headed over to John and Shona’s sheep farm high in the hills to the northwest of Dunedin. He runs about 3,000 sheep plus a herd of cattle on 1,200 or so acres of land; we got to see him and his two sheep dogs corralling some sheep. Then he gave us a full tour of his farm, followed by a delicious meal with them of lamb roast and great roasted vegetables with a very refreshing salad. We enjoyed our stay with them very much; great down-to-earth people.

We had two full days seeing the sights of Dunedin, capped by a train ride up the Taieri Gorge the afternoon of the 27th. They had a forest fire in that area (blocked the train a couple of days ago) and the helicopters were active scooping up water. Had a good time at the Speights Brewery tour also!

On the 28th we drove up to Christchurch, stopping at Shag’s Point for a look at fur seals and we had a great encounter with a yellow-eyed penguin right below our view point. These guys are rare. While at this point another couple asked us if we were aware of the tsunami warning because of the 8.8 earthquake in Chile – hadn’t heard about it, we replied. The ocean did seem unusually calm, but no big problems were noted in this area of the coast. We were not allowed to go down to the beach farther north to see the boulders at Moeraki; CLOSED due to tsunami danger.

Our day in Christchurch on March 1 was supposed to be 80 degrees, but the cloud cover did not go away and we don’t believe it got over 68; not a good day for punting on the Avon River. The botanical garden was great, and we did enjoy a number of interesting museums in Christchurch. We have found it interesting to note that most museums and the like are free of charge; they will accept a donation. Same with the national parks. Kind of nice for us, but it must place a tax burden on the residents.