Mickey Mouse in Porpoise Bay, Catlins

Catch-up, we've been parked up at our personal POP in Winton once again, a bonus two week visit with the family while we waited for the weather to settle.  It's been far from ideal and I think we have had just a couple of sunny and warm days in the last 4 weeks. The wind has been relentless and the rain constant. Summer sure has taken a break in the deep South, but I hear it's been similar elsewhere in the country too. 

We left Winton this morning heading for the interior; this may be the last blog for awhile as I'm not sure if we'll have reception where we're bound. Tonight, we're parked up at the Lumsden NZMCA Park, one of our regular staging posts. And guess what? It's raining again, cats and dogs too.

Now, back to the Catlins.

Porpoise Bay is a surf beach, a beautiful sweeping crescent of golden sand that's not quite as famous as its close neighbour Curio Bay, on the other side of the headland, but well known all the same. As the name suggests, Porpoise Bay is the home of some very cute dolphins. Very cute, extra tiny and highly endangered, Hector's Dolphins, the only endemic dolphin found in NZ. 

A family group of Hector's live and feed in the bay and it's more than likely you'll see them if you spend a little time scanning the waters, especially in the early morning and late afternoon when they tend to move close into shore. The most noticeable feature of the Hectors is their dark round dorsal fin which looks like a Mickey Mouse ear.

Porpoise Bay is a safe swimming and surf beach and the dolphins are quite accustomed to sharing their space with swimmers and surfers. Of course they are just as happy playing and chasing each other in the surf by themselves too.

The dolphins are hard to spot when you're down at beach level, especially if they are out behind the breakers. The carpark near the Curio Bay campground and on the way to the lookout, is an ideal place to stop...

...and scan the waves. And with so many eyes looking, it doesn't take long for someone to let out an excited shout. 

If you're lucky the dolphins, especially the mothers & calves, can sometimes be seen swimming right below the bank in the sheltered corner of the bay. 

This father was helping his sons learn to surf on the small waves that were formed on a small reef just offshore when two Hectors came to visit...

...before moving further along the bay...

...and as word spread that they were in close, people started heading into the waves to swim with them. 

The dolphins had other ideas, and moved even further down the beach...

...to play by themselves. Unfortunately they were just about outside my lens range (and most people's view from the bank)- these shots have been heavily cropped and are a little blurry. But at least I got to see them playing and surfing the waves.

And to finish, a tail stand in their dinner suits! They look really unusual like this (don't forget to click on a photo to enlarge). One day I'll capture them up close, in the meantime I was happy to at least get a few shots of more than just their Mickey Mouse fins. 

See you sometime soon...

Camp Niagara- The Catlins

Catch-up

After we left Hinahina, our next stop was the Niagara Falls. Yes that's right Niagara Falls, this is the New Zealand version of the famous falls. The falls were named by a surveyor with a sense of humour; that's them in the background, just a small cascade of water over some rocks. Mind you, a day later and the falls had doubled in height and the rocks had disappeared. I bet the better known version could never claim that.

We actually visited the falls on one of our previous trips through the Catlins and checked out the NZMCA Park which is just across the road, but this time we were staying.

It's a lovely well looked after park and the local branch have done wonders with the site- even though on our last visit we were aghast at the shingle laid down and no grass available to park on- after 3 years in the South Island we've learnt, you need gravel. There's a short loop track through a native bush grove which will attract and add to the many birds in the area. This Kereru/Wood Pigeon greeted us at the gate one evening, not moving until after I opened the gate.

The Park is an ideally situated base for exploring the southern end of the Catlins. Waikawa, Porpoise Bay, Curio Bay and the Petrified Forest are just a short drive away with Slope Point and Waipapa Point a little further south and the Chaslands Highway, Cathedral Caves, McLean Falls and Tautuku beach not too far north.

Once again the weather played havoc with out plans and we had two days of solid wind and rain. And once again we hunkered down, watching the comings and goings of other members who quite possibly were on their holidays and on more fixed itineraries. I did feel sorry for them, the Catlins is not nice in crappy weather.

David had a short burst of activity before the rain arrived; fishing the river that runs behind the site. But he found the nearly black and slow moving water a little spooky in the twilight and saw nothing rise so gave it away after a short time. 

The banks were also overgrown and very slippery with long grass running right down to edge. One slip and you'd have headed over the bank and into the water....as I nearly did from half way up! I forgot the memo- don't wear Crocs when clambering about on slippery river banks.

The caravans above and below are whitebaiter 'huts'. We're not very far from the Waikawa Estuary here and the river is a very popular during the whitebait season. We stopped to talk to a couple of locals who were re-cutting a track to their stands. They told us- with a bit of prodding- that they'd caught 30kgs & 50kgs respectively last season. Now that's a good haul! 

This caravan has a great name, perhaps it should be parked at the entrance to the NZMCA Park! 

In between rain squalls we did a tiki-tour up the Waikawa Valley, over the MacLennan Range down the Tahakopa Valley to Papatowai and back along the Chaslands Highway home. Not one of our more exciting road trips but interesting all the same. I did love the narrow alleyway cut through the Catlins Forest over the range. It reminded me of the kiwifruit shelterbelts back in the Bay of Plenty.

For much of the way, the trees on the left were up against a rock wall, the road cut through lower than top of the range but then I couldn't decide if it was rock or deep forest behind other sections including the right hand side.

The long Tahakopa Valley is mostly commercial forestry and the only other vehicles we met on the road were logging trucks. 

We stopped to check out a memorial to the area's early settlers, the 'MacLennan Clan' and after who the range and a settlement on the main road near Papatowai, are named after. 

Our next stop was at the once bustling settlement of Tahakopa, 9kms inland from the Tahakopa Estuary and Papatowai. There are just eight permanent residents here and a handful of cottages in various states of disrepair & restoration.

Tahakopa was once the rail head for the branch line from Balclutha; the Catlins River Branch serviced first, the logging industry (there were once 16 sawmills in the valley), and then the farming communities as the valley opened up to early settlers. The line closed in 1971 which sadly signalled the demise of the settlement. The old railway station is slowly being reclaimed by nature.

One bright beacon in Tahakopa is the restored  'Our Hut', once a church and then the local hall, the historic building was built in 1921.

 'Our Hut' is used for meetings and gatherings and also holds records of much of Tahakopa's history.

Back on the coast, the wind was whipping along and the rain squalls horizontal. We stopped at the Florence Hill lookout over Tautuku Bay, an iconic Catlins scene. The wind was so strong I could hardly push the door open to get out and then once I did I had to brace myself against the ute to take a shot. I managed one shot before stinging rain pummeled my face and the camera lens. Funny how this looks such a serene shot.

We drove down to the bottom of the hill and out onto the beach, hoping for some shelter so we could have lunch. Instead of stinging rain we got stinging sand! We backed right up to the dunes beside a stream and had lunch on the tailgate, the cab offering a little bit of shelter. I told David he had better hold tight to his mug of tea but he sat it on the tailgate, it wasn't long before it was over.

A surfer from a rental motorhome tested the on-shore breeze and even though the waves don't look much from here they were quite large and very messy. His friends got a little concerned for him (as did David) after he disappeared for a long while and then popped up way down by the rocks.

I did a little processing on this shot, a good one for a tourism company perhaps- I imagine the occupants sitting inside in awe of their surroundings and not quite believing that they could drive onto a beach and be the only ones there (until we arrived). 

We headed off home and it rained solid all the way back to Niagara.

The only problem with the Niagara site was that there is absolutely no cellphone coverage which in turn usually means no internet either. And while most people are on holiday and not bothered, it soon becomes a problem for those of us that live on the road and/or need to have some contact with the outside world. One day is OK, 2 days bearable, 3 days- get me out of there!

So it was just as well our Netspeed modem is mobile and 12V, we were able to un-plug it from it's cubbyhole in the van, plug it in the ute's lighter socket and take it for a drive until we registered a signal. It doesn't sit in the iPad (TomTom) holder, I just moved it from the centre console so it could be in the shot. So with a signal, it's just a matter of connecting to the modem from our smart phone, iPad or laptops as per normal.

And it just happened that signal was strong and clear at the top of the lookout at Curio Bay, 16kms from Niagara. Well in fact the signal showed up a little earlier but why not make the most of the outing by making sure we had a great view while catching up with internet chores and phone calls. This was a Vodafone connection through Netspeed, our Spark mobiles were very weak, in fact virtually non-existent, the first time we've found Vodafone better than Spark. 

As you can see the weather was once again wild and stormy and heading our way- this is overlooking Curio Bay and the Petrified Forest, which is at the far end of the bay. The wind is holding me off the edge here, it's gale force and quite thrilling and scary at the same time. 

It's a 50 foot drop onto the rocks below and the waves are crashing over the rocky platform. I watched numerous tourists near the edge jumping in the air and flying backwards onto the ground or actually trying to fly while friends took photos. I'm not sure how they would have fared if the wind had died suddenly.

Because of the weather the Curio Bay campground wasn't too busy each time we drove through it, but those that were there were quite sheltered in amongst the flax bushes.

Porpoise Bay was just as uninviting with very few people on the beach or looking out for Hectors Dolphins from the banks above the beach.

The rain came and went along with the tourists, in the end the wind got so ferocious there was just us and a lone seagull fighting the elements at the top of the hill.

Of course it made total sense, being a Friday night and all, to stop at the famous Waikawa fish and chip caravan to pick dinner up on the way home. T'was perfect too! I know one thing I'm going to miss when we do return to the North Island for good- Blue Cod! 

Waikawa, Curio Bay & the Petrified Forest, Catlins

Just a note before this blog post goes live; Just after I posted the previous blog when I said we looked like we'd be staying on at Weir Beach Reserve forever, we decided it was time to move & within the hour we were packed and on the road. We are now just down the road from the Cathedral Caves & I'm working off a dodgy free one hour internet connection and I'm not sure if the photos will show ok. I do know that the font size varies from paragraph to paragraph which I will try to fix next time I have a good connection. So please excuse any mistakes...

In the last couple of days we've done a couple of tiki-touring trips over to Waikawa & Curio Bay which are about 16kms north of us on the main winding shingle road through this part of Catlins and another popular area of interest. Waikawa is located on the edge of one of the huge tidal estuaries that frequent this coastline and was once a bustling port town.

Waikawa Boat Shed

It's now a sleepy little village with about half a dozen houses & cribs, a hall, a lovely church and a fabulous old museum that must contain every old knick knack, antique this & that, settlers photos, clothes, medals, newspaper cuttings and pieces of ship wreck that exist in the area.  Much of it has been donated by the local families and many of the names are now very familiar to us as many roads, settlements & points of interest are named after them.  

The museum is well worth a visit, just a donation entry fee requested and you could lose yourself in there for a good few hours especially if the weather isn't great outdoors. But it was a glorious sunny day so we didn't linger long. Alongside the museum is the "famous in Southland" blue cod fish 'n chip caravan which is said to sell the best tasting fish & chips in NZ. It was lunchtime so of course we had to see if this was true and yes, we can report back that they were indeed great fish 'n chips but on a par with the ones we had at Waihola! 

Just down the road from Waikawa are the Niagara Falls. New Zealand's Niagara Falls. The falls were named by a surveyor with an obvious sense of humour. We gave these falls a 2/10; one above "not worth the walk" because in fact you only had to take 10 or so steps from the side of the road to see them! The falls are also just across the road from the NZMCA Park which we looked at on the way down to Invercargill.

Back on the main road & just around the corner from the falls is the Waikawa Holiday Resort which I'm sure every day has plenty of vacancies, and look, the caravans come fully air conditioned.....

Along side the road just north of Waikawa is an old concrete horse trough that was built around 1890, it gave passing horse teams a welcome drink after they had completed the climb up Cemetery Hill- which actually wasn't that bad a climb compared with others in the area.

While we were in the museum (which is also an i-site) a foreign couple came in to ask "where were the dolphins?" David & I smiled at each other; like you can just walk in and expect to be told where the dolphins are going to be waiting for you. David wanted to say "Just a minute I have one under the counter".

They're not quite like sealions or seals which are sprawled out on the beach in well-known places. They're out there in the ocean, swimming around wherever they please. But in fact the lady behind the counter told them that there had been reports of dolphins in Porpoise Bay just that morning. Porpoise Bay is the summer home of the Hectors Dolphin, a tiny & very cute endangered dolphin with distinctive black & white markings that is only found off the southern coast of NZ. With a total population of around 3-4000, Hectors dolphins are one of the rarest dolphins in the world, so to see one (or more) is very lucky indeed.

And especially if you are just passing through. As luck would have it, our next stop was at the lookout at the Heads which is the prominent point between  Porpoise Bay & Curio Bay and as we passed the camp ground we spotted a few people pointing out to the waves & saw others in the water. We pulled in and there in the shallows were half a dozen Hectors dolphins swimming around and along the wave line. They weren't doing too much wave riding or leaping about but looked to be feeding as they made their way back & forward in the one area for quite some time. Most of the time you could see only their rounded dorsal fin but I managed to catch one tail walking.

I wonder if there's something like the "Big Four" that people have on their must see list when visiting the Catlins; the four being sealions, yellow eyed penguins, hectors dolphin & the elephant seal. If there is we can now tick off the first three & I'm hoping we may see an elephant seal at Nugget Point where they breed. What a thrill for us to see all of these wonderful animals in such close quarters & all within a few kilometres of each other. We were in for another delightful surprise when we visited the Petrified Forest in Curio Bay.

We had a look at the campground located at the Heads thinking we might have come through there for a couple of nights but we decided it wasn't that good for us. The sites were quite small and tucked into thick flax alcoves. All I could think of were the rats that must live in the flax and David was thinking about how claustrophobic each site was with a wall of tall flax on all three sides: though it would have provided great protection from the gale force winds that frequent the area. Some of the smaller sites were out on the edge of the cliff with fabulous views over the rocky platforms below.

Porpoise Bay & the Curio Bay Campground

Curio Bay

Curio Bay & the Petrified Forest- stairway down to the rock flats can be see top right

Our next stop was the Petrified Forest at Curio Bay. This is one of the world's finest fossil forests & is easily accessible at low tide down a purpose built ramp & stairway. Embedded into the bedrock the petrified stumps, fallen trees & fern imprints are from the Jurassic period and are over 180 million years old. It was quite fascinating searching out the various markings & patterns of the trees. The stumps used to be a lot taller but over time storm borne driftwood & logs have battered the height of them down.

Very soon after arriving onto the rocky platform the Petrified Forest took second place because out of the flax (& it's nest) came a yellow eyed penguin, waddling down to the water for a wash & a swim. That's him (or her), up above on the header, making his way back to the nest afterwards.

And then once we had had our fill of him David found a very special little guy, a part downy yellow eyed penguin chick, standing on a rocky ledge waiting for his parents to return from the sea with dinner. But you'll have to wait a little longer for those photos.....