SUZY AND PAUL ON TOUR

 16^th February


We had been so preoccupied with the penguins last night we had forgotten to look at the historic fossils, so we returned to the beach in the bitter cold again. To our surprise there were still penguins all over the rocks. We took some shots of the forest.

Fossilised tree stumps

More Penguins

After a quick cup of tea to warm up we drove to Slope Point, the most southern point of the south island.We walked for about twenty minutes over fields of sheep and past several cows to find the signpost, decided it was far too cold to be prancing about and then proceeded to Waipapa Point Lighthouse for another cup of tea.

South of the south Island

We read the signs about the history of the timber lighthouse that had been recently restored and clambered over the sand dunes, we looked all around us to make sure we didn’t trample any bird nests but I didn’t expect to find what I did. I screamed at Paul to stop where he was, and he came running only to see me backing very fast away from the beach and a very large male sea lion, who was getting cosy with his Mrs. “Oops – I fell on a very large sea lion” – can you imagine having to explain that one to the insurance company!

Con'seal'ed

Invercargill houses the first successfully bred tuatara collection at the town museum, so after a stop at Pak N Save for supplies, we spent a half hour looking at reincarnated prehistoric lizards which were quite fascinating.

Prehistoric Tautara lizard breeding in Invercargill

From there we drove to the Bluff lookout point on the coast – we didn’t have time to visit Stewart Island.

View point at Bluff

We chose a campsite at Riverton as our stop point for the night – needing to use the washing machine and charge a few items, we initially found we were the only people there, with a large timber community hall, several sofas and a wood fire it was very homely and serene.

At 6.30pm the campsite filled with campervans – the lounge was overrun with screaming children whose parents had disappeared, the kitchen was full of people, using all utensils and cooking everything from pan fried, slightly burnt sausages, to bread, roast sweet potatoes and our very humble chicken stir fry – it smelled disgusting! We quickly washed up, gathered our washing and vacated for the tranquillity of our little van to watch the sun go down.