We walked for a few hours before taking the ferry back to Bluff hoping for a last opportunity to spot a kiwi in the wild…no luck unfortunately.
We stayed the night in Invercargill and on the advice of some folk we met in Queenstown, headed towards the “not to be missed” Catlins. We took our time and made numerous stops along the way to see various waterfalls, ancient petrified forests, yellow eyed penguins, gemstone beach and just generally very picturesque landscape. We stayed for a couple of nights at an AirBnB in Kaka Point which also happened to be the local boutique brewery (Catlins Brewery). Very pleased to be able to say that Norm knows what he is doing.
We did a day trip to Dunedin and really enjoyed the architecture and the general feel of the place.
That evening we staked out a hide overlooking Nugget Point and were rewarded by a pair of endangered Yellowed Eyed penguins popping out of the surf and skipping their way home.
The following day we meandered along the banks of the mighty Clutha river almost all the way to Wanaka and eventually to Hawea for the night. It was a fantastic drive though some amazing scenery… which we’re sure would have been much better had it not been raining for most of the way!
We arrived at Fox Glacier the next day after a particularly enjoyable drive (it was crystal clear today) through Haast Pass. On the advice of the manager of the Rainforest Motel, instead of driving up Fox Glacier, we drove away from the mountains to Gillespies Beach and looked back to see a better view of Fox Glacier than you’d get up close… it was quite a sight!
Gillespies beach was also purportedly a good place to find punamu (NZ jade) and we spend some hours walking along the very stoney “beach” looking at our feet. We took away a few kilos of stones, but we didn’t have any Eureka! moments. The search for jade seemed to become a primary objective for much of our trip up the West coast!