Day 7 on our advent calendar was a cute pair of blue mittens. We awoke to a gorgeous day and to a gorgeous view. The sky was a clear blue with not a single cloud in sight. After brekky we went for a walk along the estuary beach and round to the ocean hoping to see another sea lion. The beach was beautiful in the morning light and we had a really lovely walk. As we got to the ocean we saw a big sea lion in the distance who was playing on the sand near the crashing...

We had a very peaceful night all on our own. We found a bird under the day 3 window of our advent calendar. After brekky we drove the short distance to McLean Falls. The trail to the falls took us up through the rainforest until we could hear the water gushing down. The falls are described as the best in the area and they were pretty spectacular. We watched the water tumbling over and descending some steep drop offs and terraces and as we were early there was no ...

Behind door number 2 on our advent calendar was a snowman. After brekky we left this lovely camp site and the gorgeous animals. We drove into Invercargill first to get some food from New World before heading east to The Catlins which is a sparsely populated area known for it's rugged natural beauty. We drove towards a place called Otara and then down to Waipapa Point on the coast hoping for an encounter with a seal or a sea lion for which this stretch of coast is...

It had been another wet and windy night but we had slept well. We were excited to be opening the first window on our snazzy advent calendar today. We are now on count down. As we liked this camp site so much we decided that we would stay here one more night and simply have a relaxing day. We had brekky, relaxed, had lunch, relaxed, had our tea, and relaxed some more. As well as watching the gorgeous animals in their field we watched with some incredulity a 'Europ...

It had been a wet and windy night but we awoke to see some blue sky. Just before 8am we wandered over to the reception so we could help feed the animals. With the wind chill from the breeze that was still blowing it was a fairly nippy start to the day. We were followed to reception by the hens who clucked their way behind us and we could hear the cute little lambs baaing away in excitement as they sensed that breakfast was on it's way. Just before 8, the owner Ga...