More holiday 2011

So where were we? Oh yes, the Catlins.

But before we got there, we had to stop at Nugget Point, because there's a lighthouse there. And you can never see too many lighthouses.

The lighthouse at Nugget Point was probably the most beautiful and dramatic lighthouse we saw. It helped that it was a gorgeous sunny day.

The nuggets at Nugget Point

Driving southward, we reached our destination: Papatowai. We did circles around this little town looking for the campsite where we were intending to stay. It was shown on our map, but we could not find it anywhere. Papatowai was one of those places that you could miss if you blinked, so we knew it should not be this difficult to find our campground. We pulled into a convenience store and I went inside to ask. Inside this convenience store I came across an unexpected phenomenon: New Zealand's only rude and unhelpful storeperson. This conversation ensued:

Me: Hi! We're looking for the campground?

Rude & Unhelpful Lady: Yeah, it closed down.

Me: Oh... right... ok.

R&UL: ....

Me: Is there another campground in town?

R&UL: No.

Me: ok...

R&UL: ....

Me: I guess we'll just drive on...

R&UL: ...

Me: ... and look for another campground somewhere else...

R&UL: ....

And I left. I refuse to believe that this person working in a town of, maybe, 50 people was not aware of other places for travellers to stay. She simply did not want to help me. I was unreasonably upset by this. It kind of ruined the day for me. Gareth could not console me. It was just so weird to be not helped by someone. I guess this says a lot about the high esteem I hold Kiwis in and how nice I expect them to always be. Especially small town Kiwis. You just expect people to be nice and helpful. Not rude and unhelpful. It's quite upsetting when your view of people is shattered, isn't it?

So we drove on, hoping to find a campground in the next town. We didn't have to go very far, as it turns out. Just up the road near McLean Falls, we found McLean Falls Motels and Holiday Park.

This place was perfect for us. We were the only tent campers, so no worries about the crying baby keeping other campers awake at night. It had a kitchen and a common room, so we had some place warm and light to take the crying baby when he woke up at 5:30 a.m. AND it had a cafe! No need to make do without flat whites while camping.

And we were well positioned to check out all the waterfalls in the area. Like lighthouses, you can never see too many waterfalls.

But it wasn't all waterfalls. There were also some caves. The Cathedral Caves are at the end of a 15 minute walk down through some bush, followed by a 10 minute walk along the beach.

At the cave entrance

Deep in the cave... ooooo

You walk in one entrance, go about 100 metres, and do a U-turn, coming out another opening. It was kind of neat.

It may be that by this point in our trip, we had just seen too much natural wonder. It's hard to be in a constant state of wonderment. We were experiencing beauty overload. So it's like, "magnificent caves on the beach... meh." But no, they were lovely. I'm glad we stopped. It's never a bad idea to walk on a beach. And if there are some caves at the end, all the better.

We spent two nights in the Catlins and then felt we had done about as much as we could there with a baby. It was time to move on.

A friend had recommended we stop at Curio Bay, so we did. Curio Bay has fossilised trees. I was not expecting much, to be honest. I had been sorely disappointed by the "Petrified Forest" in northern Arizona many years before. (The Petrified Forest doesn't look anything like a forest.) So my expectations were very low. They were so low in fact that when we got there, and the baby was sleeping in his carseat, I volunteered to just wait in the car with the sleeping baby while Gareth went on his own to check it out.

He came back 10 minutes later very excited. "It's amazing!" I assumed he was joking. "No, it's really cool. Really! Go see!!" At this point, Quinn woke up. So we could all go together. Great.

But it was really cool.

Used to be a tree... now it's a rock.

There's also a penguin hide here, but we did not see any penguins. We thought we saw a penguin, and slowly crept toward it so as not to startle it, but when we got close enough we realised it was just a penguin-shaped rock.

Another great thing about Curio Bay was the giant seaweed. It was pretty mesmerising. It was like watching giant fettucine noodles sloshing back and forth in the waves. I stared at it for ages.

We left Curio Bay, two very satisfied customers.

Going to fast forward a little bit here... Slope Point, the southern most point on the South Island!

And Waipara Point - another lighthouse!

Ok, now on to Invercargill, capital of Southland...

Mick Jagger famously described Invercargill as "the arsehole of the world". Not very flattering, is it? I had had the pleasure of visiting a couple times for work, and hadn't really found anything charming about the place. I was ready to give it another chance. Gareth was also completely open minded. We were ready to love Invercargill.

Invercargill sucked.

Thank goodness we had decided to take a break from the camping and got a hotel room, because the wind and rain were relentless. We were cowering in our room listening to the howling outside, wondering why anybody ever comes to this horrid place. The weather was that awful.

The sign greeting us when we drove into town announced that Invercargill was "the friendly city". Friendly people would have perhaps saved this place. But no one was friendly. Well, the motel lady was pretty nice I guess. But everyone else seemed utterly miserable. We felt bad for them. We were just passing through, but these folks had to stay. They had to stay in a town that, evidently, closed down at 3pm on a Saturday. When the weather cleared and we tried to check out town, everything was shut. It was all very odd. The street was full of cars, but no shops were open. We found the whole experience very perplexing.

We headed to the beach. This was not a great idea either.

Gareth is about to be carried away by the wind.

We spent two nights in Invercargill (we wanted to see Bluff too). On the morning we were leaving, we were glad we had visited, but had no plans to come back soon. We made one last stop at the Farmer's Market, and so happy we did. Invercargill's Farmer's Market was awesome. Whether it was awesome in its own right, or just awesome compared to the rest of Invercargill, we can't be sure. But I do know that I had not seen a spread of baked goods quite like that anywhere else in my life. Amazing. I ate a huge baked hunk of calorific deliciousness with my flat white; Gareth got a "kebab wrap" (part kebab, part burrito, all scrumptious). Bellies full, Invercargill didn't seem all bad anymore.

Next stop: Fiordland and Central Otago.