Tiff & Jared's adventures

Leaving Mount Cook, we headed south. We had AirBnB plans (woo – no camping for one night!) in Dunedin for the night before we ventured to the Catlins.

Before getting to Dunedin, we stopped at a rather touristy spot called the Moeraki Boulders. Along the beach coast, there are these spherical rocks in literally perfect symmetry. Nowhere else in earth 🌍 supposedly is there another phenomenon like this. The weather still wasn’t great (misty and cold) but it was definitely worth the stop.Moving on, we got to Dunedin around 3PM. Our AirBnB host was very nice and recommended some breweries to us to complement the gloomy day. We started at Speight’s, a Dunedin establishment that had been around since the 1800s. We got a good porter and ale, and split a real meal!! No freeze-dried Jetboil meal tonight, no sir. We split a rather English meal of sausage, mashed potatoes and peas mmm. After getting some rounds of cards in, we headed to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. It didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to walk up but MAN that was steep! It was fun to watch the cars drive up – they had to start accelerating at the very base of the hill in order to make it up the hill. At some points, it was 45 degrees steep. Earlier in 2018, someone pogo-sticked up the entire street in order to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House.<<<
tinuing on after catching our breaths, we went to the second brewery called Emerson's. I got a delicious porter on nitro and Jared got a good IPA.

The next day, we set off for, in my opinion, one of the best kept secrets of NZ – The Catlins. I wasn't expecting this region to be the highlight of the trip in any way possible but I was pleasantly surprised by what we saw. Our first stop was the Nugget Point Lighthouse, about a twenty minute walk from the car park. From there, we got a great view of the Pacific Ocean. Onwards, we went and did a short hike at Mcclean Falls. A short hike, it was definitely worth the pretty waterfall at the end.pictured below: instead of trailhead bathrooms saying “occupied”, they say “engaged”!After resting a bit, we drove to Curio Bay, the real secret of the Catlins. We stayed at the CurioScape campground and were right in the thick of things. Curio Bay is special in the fact that it’s one of the few and best places to see Yellow-Eyed Penguins in their natural habitat, as well as Hector’s Dolphins, the world’s most miniature dolphin. While we didn’t get the chance to see any dolphins, we walked down to the beach around dusk along with the other camp goers and set up our camera ready to catch the penguin coming in from the ocean for its nightly march to its nest. We were told there were two resident penguins we would see – their respective mates were guarding the newly born babies. After waiting about an hour, we saw the first penguin in the distance on a cliff. It was too far to photograph but through our binoculars, or binos as we’ve started to refer to them (we’re practically Kiwis already), we saw the daddy hopping over rocks to get to its hungry chicks. About thirty minutes after seeing this, we saw the second penguin emerge a lot closer to us. He put on a show he did, taking about ten minutes to preen himself before wobbling on over to his family’s nest. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the front of the penguin, or his mesmerizing yellow eyes, but it’s pretty cool knowing we saw two of approximately 4,000 Y-EPs left in the world.<<<
ling accomplished, we made a dinner of pasta Bolognese in the camp kitchen and went to bed.

After a restless night's sleep due to the excessive amount of wind, we woke up sleepy and ready for a new day. On today's plate, we continued to explore the Catlins. Firstly, we headed to Slope Point, the southernmost tip of New Zealand. At that point, we were closer to the South Pole than we were to the Equator! There are only a few other places in the works that can boast that and we will probably never be that far south in our lives again, so pretty cool! The downside was that it was super windy and I might have lost Jared’s hat to the wind (sorry Jared). We also had to walk through a field of, you guessed it, MORE SHEEP, so that was pretty cool. <<<
king down the campsite, we headed towards the Waipohatu Loop Walk, a three hour round trip hike through the lush bush of the Catlins. The trail followed a stream through the bush before leading to two waterfalls. We only made it to one of the waterfalls and honestly it wasn’t super impressive. I’d recommend the Mcclean Falls walk for the waterfall view, but the hike itself was nice.<<<
ing a few minutes after the hike to unwind, we then headed to Invercargill for a quick brewery. Invercargill brewery was one of the coolest most eclectic breweries we've been to – the brewer thought of the Asylum theme as a way to escape the crazy world around you. There were different chairs and table settings around the brewery and a bunch of games in the warehouse-y center. We split a flight of six beers, played some cards and hit the road again for another night of freedom camping at Monkey Island 🐵🌴. Remember, freedom camping is what it sounds like – free. While there are limited amenities (we had a pit toilet), the views can be spectacular. That’s exactly what happened here – we pitched our tent on a sand dune right above the beach. After settling in, we made dinner and walked down to the beach to eat around 8pm. The sun didn’t set until 9:15 or so, and we had beautiful lighting for dinner. After eating, we walked out to the laughably-sized island, only reachable during low tide. Climbing the stairs, we reached the top and had a 360 degree view of the beach and cliffs. It was absolutely stunning. We stayed up to take some pictures of the sun setting then walked the ten steps up to our perfectly situated tent. Lights out. Next stop: Fiordlands!!