Catlins

From Otago (see entry How much wildlife can you see in 3 days?) we headed further south after a brief look around a very wet Dunedin. The Catlins region is one the least visited in NZ and for this reason it was one I (Frank) was quite looking forward to seeing it, the wildlife continued popping up but much more fragmented vs Otago peninsula, nonetheless it was great to see Royal Spoonbills (now Claire's favourite bird!), plenty more seals and assorted sea birds but try as we might we didn't see the rare endemic Hector's dolphin. What was particularly nice was to see once more the rainforest we had left behind back in April, there were ferns a plenty, podocarp trees (NZ pines) and some wonderful waterfalls.

At a place called Curio Bay we came across a petrified forest (a forest that over time turns to stone given the right conditions!) which was fascinating to see, we got there at high tide so didn't see all of the trees but we did see some good examples. By the way the forest is no longer standing in case you were wondering, that really would be something to see!

One thing that really struck me in this region was the power of the wind, the Catlins sits on the south east coast of the South Island and is subject to the roaring forties that blow hard up from the only serious landmass that sits south of the South Island. You're probably not surprised to hear that it's Antarctica and hence the wind is by no means warm, the wind is so strong that it forces trees to grow horizontally, I've never seen anything like it. I've attached some pics of these trees, so you get an idea of what I'm talking about. As you'd imagine the wind also has an effect on the waves, we saw this in some spectacular spray from the sea pounding hard against the rocks, I tried to capture this on camera but no justice was done in my opinion.

What I read about the lack of visitors was nailed on too, we barely saw another car especially right on the south coast and I was not surprised to find that not many people live down here. Those that do must be proper hardy types, not sure it'd be for me either but I was very glad to have had a chance to take some of it in.