We started our day with a hike to Mc Lean Falls. It was a beautiful track to the falls, constructed by the students at King High School. We were very grateful for the impressive job they did, as we couldn't have made it to the falls without the five bridges and seven staircases that took us to a platform to see the falls. The track also had numerous signs identifying the trees along the way.

We went back to our Mc Lean Falls campground and had a tall black and a flat white (our coffee choices) while I uploaded the photos of our first waterfall of the day.

We stopped at peaceful Lake Wilkie, a little lake with a nice trail.

The Florence Hill Lookout gave us a beautiful view of Tautuku Bay and the peninsula.   

We drove through the very small towns of Papatowai and Maclennan, nestled in the podocarp forest and coastal mountains. There were also some sheep paddocks.

Then we hiked to two waterfalls, Matai Falls and its neighbor, Horseshoe Falls. Both were reached by a hike through the bush.

We reached the trail to the last waterfall of the day to Purakaunui Falls by driving on a gravel road several kilometers off of our route, but the detour was worth it. Purakaunui Falls is so pretty that they were featured on a NZ postage stamp.

We drove on to Owaka, which means place of the canoe, and which is the largest town in The Catlins, population 400. We went to Newhaven and our campground located on Surat Bay. We immediately left our campervan to hike the track to the beach. 

Surat Bay was named after the sailing vessel Surat, wrecked in 1874, but it is now a favorite resting place of Hooker Sea Lions. One of them gave us a wave when Bob took his photo.