The Catlins

On Saturday 8. August Marcell and I decamped from our cozy flat in Dunedin and started a short weekend trip to the Catlins, an undulating quite remote area in the very southeastern part of New Zealand with heaps of stunning bays and waterfalls as you will see. To make the best out of these two days we departed early Saturday morning and came back Sunday in the afternoon. 

 We left Dunedin a few minutes past 9 am and started our journey south on Highway #1 that leads from Dunedin to Invercargil, the southernmost city of New Zealand. As one can clearly see on the picture above I´m sometimes quite scared of Marcell´s "driving skills".

 Our first out of at least a dozen stops on the way south: Kaka Point. As you can see on the next picture, the main attraction (besides the name on the sign of course) is the beautiful sand beach. Unfortunately the weather was quite choppy and freezing so we decided to take a rain-check for our swim in the Pacific Ocean and took some decent pictures of the marvelous landscape instead.

The next sightseeing-point on our long, loong list was Nugget Point:

 A tiny path lead us out to the famous lighthouse of Nugget Point. The view towards the lighthouse shows the main attraction on the right side of the hill: The Nuggets, a natural formation of rocks in the ocean.

 Picture of me standing on the viewing platform underneath the lighthouse and directly in front of the Nuggets.

 Another view onto the Nugget rocks. Frankly spoken Marcell and I had thought about climbing down that hill and clamber to the tip of the mainland to get an even better view onto the rocks. But there was no official path leading there and the first part (jumping down from the viewing platform) seemed us to be too risky so we stayed where we were and enjoyed the stunning view from the bottom of the lighthouse.

This is the coastline south of the lighthouse on Nugget Point.

 And here you can see parts of the northern coastline surrounded by the amazingly turquoise water of the Pacific.

After visiting this absolutely astonishing place and taking these quite good pictures (and loads more, which I unfortunately can´t upload all on my blog) we began to feel our stomachs getting hungry and decided to have a little break and get some lunch in the nearest town. While looking for a suitable restaurant to get something to eat we wondered about the numerous Rallye-cars in town. Until one of the servants in the restaurants told us that apparently a Rallye was taking place here. So we tried to eat as fast as possible, managed to get a map of the Rallye-tracks and departed to the nearest viewpoint.

It was a first for both of us to watch a Ralley-race live and I have to say that it was an absolutely terrific experience. We were able to get quite close to the racetrack and took a shitload of photos and videos of the incredibly loud cars.

Back on the street to our next destination we came across this race-car that was clearly on the way to its next racetrack. So we decided to give our car a try and chase the race-car as long as possible. The race-driver obviously didn´t floor his car as he still had a few races in front of him, so we were able to chase the car until it turned right after several km to reach his starting point for the next racing stage. Believe it or not, it was an enormous amount of fun to compete in this little "race"!

 On the way to our next attraction we stopped on top of a hill right in front of the glorious Cannibal Bay. As you will read later on in this blog-post this is one of the bays we will probably not forget in a very long time. But for now just enjoy the miraculous view on Cannibal Bay.

By now it was around 3:30 pm and we still had a few more attractions on our list for today. So we spent just enough time to take a few pictures and left the viewpoint on top of Cannibal Bay.

After a drive of about 30 or 40 minutes we reached our next destination: Lake Wilkie, a tiny but gorgeous lake 15 minutes from the car-park. The best thing about the lake definitely was the handy boardwalk that lead around almost half of the lake and provided an excellent and very convenient way of exploring the tranquil and peaceful environment of Lake Wilkie.

Just 5 to 10 minutes drive away from Lake Wilkie we found the car-park for our next stop: The splendid MacLean Falls. Fortunately the waterfall is way bigger and more exciting than the tiny Nicolls-Fall we visited a few days prior in Dunedin.

To get as close as possible we had to clamber some rock-walls and jump over numerous puddles. But it was totally worth it!

Marcell and me in front of the MacLean waterfall.

This is the car-park and starting point for the track to the MacLean Falls. Time to take one of the almost compulsory selfies with some sheep!
We were quite close to dawn now and decided to drive to our hostel, The Slope Point Backpackers, where we would stay for the night. On the next morning we got up at 6:30 am to watch the sunrise at Slope Point, the southernmost point of New Zealand!

Marcell standing on top of a measuring station at Slope Point.

Me standing on top of the sign that shows HOW close to the South Pole we were!

Here you can see how the slowly rising sun changes the colors of the sky from dark blue to yellow and orange hues. Although the sun itself was unfortunately hidden behind this hill it nevertheless truly was a beautiful scenery with all these colors in the sky. And all that happening so close to the Antarctica (there are only two countries in the whole world where you can get even more south: Chile and Argentina)!

Posing with the mascot of the Cafe where we had a delicious brunch after watching sunrise: The Whistling Frog.

This estuary boardwalk at Tautuku Bay slightly reminded us of the way Frodo and Sam took through a marsh on the way to Mordor.

Originally we had the intention to visit the Cathedral Caves at this point. But due to the rough tide they had been closed for the past few weeks and wouldn´t be open today. So instead of visiting the caves we decided to drive back to a place we had only discovered yesterday but had already begun to miss. Yeah, you got it, here is our second visit of Cannibal Bay:

We never had a visit to the beach as convenient as this one, not having to walk a single footstep. Instead we took an absolutely terrific, thrilling and bodacious drive on the beach. This was one of the best experiences I have ever had!!

And of course we also took some videos of this remarkable drive (or should I rather say drifting?) which you can watch here:

Our next destination were the Purakaunui Falls. This was only one of several waterfalls we visited that day but I won´t bother you with pictures of all the others. In the end they all look quite similar! But nevertheless it was a great experience to visit all these different falls, I wouldn´t want to miss it!

Our final stop was another stunning bay, the Purakaunui Bay. It is one of the places where it is very likely to see penguins or seals. As we didn´t see any at the beach itself, Marcell and I decided to climb out the rocky coastline a little bit in order to maybe eventually reach a point with some seals or penguins.

Climbing out just one or two feet above the sea-level was quite a challenge. Especially because we had to pay utmost attention to the waves which were sometimes higher than we appreciated.
Unfortunately we didn´t see any seals or penguins out there either. Too bad! But the climbing itself and the associated risk were fun enough to make it a worthwhile experience!

That´s all for now. I hope you enjoyed reading the blog and I will write another blog-post in one and a half weeks when I´ll be back from my mid-semester-break in Samoa.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts!