Friday February 17th, Saturday February 18th, Nugget Point and the Catlins
Friday Mom was supposed to get off early so we could get a head start on our weekend. The best laid plans can change: she had some patient care issues come up and we didn’t leave until four pm. We stopped in Balclutha to stock up on gas and groceries as it is a very remote area with no grocery stores and just a couple of sporadic petrol (gas) stations. We finally arrived at the amazing and isolated Nugget Lodge that looks out on the ocean.
We had a sea lion literally right below our front window. We went for a walk and found some shells. We also explored some of the shallow caves and amazingly cool rock formations right out our window. After some cool exploring it was time for treat night. Everyone was up incredibly early around four am. We found out how dark it really is with absolutely no external lights.
Our first stop was a quick drive up to nugget point. We had the place to ourselves and once again got to see and hear NZ fur seals. This time we brought along binoculars and got a close up view of the wonderful animals. Just before we left we saw a ton of weird birds flying in formations from the lighthouse out to sea. We also read that the lighthouse is automated and monitored in Wellington! Trust us, that is a long way away.
Next we drove over to Cannibal Bay (so named because the first European to discover it found human remains. While it is a nice beach, the reason we went was to sea the sea lions. A group of about thirty were laying on the beach. We kept a little distance because they were pretty riled up and were fighting.
Purakaunui Falls was next on the list. It was a wonderful wooded walk that led to a nice little falls.
Matai Falls Walk is just a little bit further down the road in the Catlins. Another dense forest walk was followed by even more impressive falls
Perhaps one of our most bizarre stops was the Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai. There is a weird old bus packed to the ceiling-literally, with hand made machines from recycled parts. The kids seemed to enjoy it.
Florence hill Lookout is a nice little spot to pull over and stretch your legs.
Owaka is one of the larger towns in the Catlins and we enjoyed lunch at the Lumberjack Restaurant before touring the Owaka Museum.
I’m not sure we knew what we were getting into when we started out for the Historic Railway Tunnel Walk. After a pleasant enough walk we ended up at the entrance to an old Railway Tunnel. It was built in the 1800‘s in just two years by hand with picks, shovels, and wheel barrows, but is now, obviously, not in use. It was very dark and our one working flashlight struggled to keep us from panicking.
It was back to Nugget Lodge and the awesome beach outside our front door. We got incredibly lucky and found a several paua shells. We even found a few live ones and worked hard to free them up. After separating the dark black meat from the shell Mom fried them up with butter and added paua shell meat to our list of exotic foods (kangaroo and crocodile).
Whew! Fun day!
The view outside our lodge!
The beach right outside our door.
Explorers!
The sea lion lounging right below our cabin.
Cave explorers!
Nugget point.
Watching the NZ fur seals.
A weird stream of birds. There were literally hundreds upon hundreds of them!
Cannibal bay.
The rowdy sea lions.
On the trail!
Our first waterfall.
Tramping along (photo by Tara).
The deep dark forest.
Our second waterfall.
Tara and mom.
Tunnel walkway.
We found a paua!
A live paua!
The meat of the paua.
Paua sliced and diced.
