Revisiting The Catlins

Catch-up

With a dose of cabin-fever threatening after nearly two weeks of inclement weather and the forecast promising sun on the horizon, we decided it was time to leave Invercargill. 

Originally we'd planned to head to one of our favourite places, Mavora Lakes, for a couple of weeks but with no internet & a 20km drive to make a connection, we decided we'd head east to the Catlins for another visit instead. Not having the internet wouldn't usually have worried us but during the busy holiday season we needed to be available should anything urgent happen at the cottages.

Fortrose Bluff- where the wind does blow

This would be our fourth visit to the Catlins so you'd think we'd have seen it all by now especially as the previous visits were for several weeks at a time. But I had a few camping sites on the radar, ones that we hadn't stayed at before, & also a few favourite places to revisit.

Toetoe Bay from Fortrose Bluff

Our first port of call was the freedom camping area at Fortrose, right on the edge of Toetoe Harbour, a large estuary and where the mighty Mataura River ends its journey. We've always stopped here for lunch on our way in or out of the Catlins, never staying overnight as our destination (Winton or Invercargill) isn't too far away. 

I'm always fascinated by the dozens of whitebait huts that line the Mataura and the smaller Titiroa Stream, not so much by the huts themselves (although one day I'm going to walk the river bank and photograph every one of them!) but the way the rivers meander back and forth several times before reaching the estuary. And the huts of course do the same so when you look across the river flats lots of  tiny sheds dot the landscape (check it out by clicking the photo to enlarge).

There's a two night maximum stay at Fortrose, the first night we had to ourselves, the second night there were a few more campers as it was the beginning of the weekend. It's nothing like it used to be though, before Covid closed the borders. Then there were dozens & dozens of campers here every night. 

We settled in overlooking the estuary on another gloomy day but by mid afternoon and as promised by the forecasters, the sun finally came out and so did a local rider, conveniently photobombing my shot as I prepared to take photos of the spoonbills.

A flock of fourteen or so Royal Spoonbills spent most of the incoming & outgoing tides sweeping back and forward in the shallow waters along the shoreline, not taking much notice of me creeping along in the mud beside them, and only disappearing  once the tide was fully in.

I love how they move in unison and in line, like mine sweepers moving their bills back and forward through the water as they slowly move forward. I'm guessing any small fish or crustacean disturbed by one flees into the bill of the one next door. 

The odd bird out was a rusty coloured female with no topknot (top right- she was always with a bigger plumed male). I've not seen any this dirty looking before, I'm not sure whether it's natural or she's been feeding in some tannin stained waters somewhere.

And the sun sets on another day....

Fortrose Sunset

While at Fortrose I took myself on a tiki-tour to visit Waipapa Point and Slope Point again, both are at the south end of the Catlins; David having seen it all before decided to have the afternoon off. 

Waipapa Lighthouse

Waipapa Point is a favourite of mine, there's plenty to take photos of; the lighthouse, sealions, shorebirds, including- if you're lucky- Hoiho/Yellow-eyed Penguins and the famous wind-blown macracapa trees.

And it makes it far more interesting when you have an unusual cloud formation above the lighthouse. 

One day I might make it here when the Southern Lights are playing, this is another great place to view Lady Aurora and photograph her with the lighthouse in the foreground.  

The beach below the lighthouse is a popular haul out pad for Sealions/Whakahao, today there is just one big boy snoozing on the sand and looking like a large clump of seaweed. On one of my previous visits there were five or six sealions on the sand and at least two dozen tourists vying for a place to photograph them without getting too close.

Today there's just me and him and he takes no notice of me. Although I saw him open one eye very slowly when a seagull landed close by.

I head up the beach checking for hoiho/penguins, it's where we saw one on our last visit. It came waddling out of the breakers and headed up into the dunes. It was just before their moult and it was probably looking for a safe haven to shelter in while it went through a rather traumatic time of the year for them.  

I didn't see any penguins this time but enjoyed beachcombing and taking photos of all the different seaweeds that had been thrown up in the recent rough seas. 

A pair of Variable Oystercatchers (who were nesting on the last visit, if they are the same pair) were also running along the froth line checking for food & treats thrown up by the sea. I thought this was a shellfish that he was stabbing & whacking on the stones but it was one of those tuber  things in the photo above.

The Black-fronted Terns/Tara had mostly finished looking after their chicks with only one or two fledglings in the flock; this one was squawking very loudly for some food. I like how all the others pretend it isn't there.

A family had arrived on the beach when I got back to the sealion, they stayed on the rocks...

...while another visitor was warily taking photos of the sleeping sealion from the sand. His girlfriend wasn't having a bar of going down to see it no matter how many times he called out to her. She said she'd be quite fine standing up on the dunes. It's great to see people giving the sealions their space although unless they are in a boisterous mood they are usually quite harmless while sleeping as long as you keep a respectable distance (10 metres) from them. 

I leave the lighthouse & sealion behind and walk the loop track back to the carpark via the old lighthouse keepers house site. 

But it's not the site I'm keen to see (that's just a small overgrown concrete pad, the house long gone) it's the square of macrocapa trees that once sheltered the house from the ferocious southerly winds that blow in here straight out of the Antarctic. They have grown into a strangely stunted & twisted row of trees. 

I smile when I see this photo; the trees look like a row of ladies baring their bottoms after having their skirts blow up over their heads!

From Waipapa Point I head north towards Slope Point which is actually the southernmost point of the South Island. Weird I know but it's because the South Island is on a slight angle. Before I get there though I take a side road to what was once a favourite freedom camping site of ours; Weir Beach.

And I'm pleasantly surprised to see the reserve looking very much like it used to; not over run with dozens of vehicles and people. Selfish I know, but things were changing before Covid, and mostly in a bad way for many camp sites with no restrictions and not enough resources to support the huge influx of visitors.

I carry on down the road to Slope Point and follow the 20 minute track across farmland  to the sign post dodging huge piles of sheep poo along the way. Who knew they could do such monster deposits! I worried for the guy I saw walking in bare feet, actually I worried for his sheets that night if he didn't wash his feet! And then there was the girl in high heel shoes...... 

The cliffs around Slope Point are very scary; high and dangerous if you get too close as they drop away into the wild surf directly below. Although when the sea is rough it's quite exhilarating watching the waves crash in on the rocks and the surge push in through a narrow gap in the land.

Slope Point done & dusted.... for a third time! David would say to me 'Why do you need to walk there again, you've already been twice?'  I'd answer, 'Because I have to, can't come that far and not do the walk'. 

Just like I have to drive further on down the road to check out the sea caves under the Point, but the tide's in and they don't show so much this time.

So I make do with a rocky point that takes in the view looking south (and I hear my mother telling me not to get too close to the edge). It is a long way down, I can imagine a few people standing out there and taking selfies for Instagram.

It's time to head for home before I do do something that needs a search party call out. 

Although it's a slow trip home because there's something like 15kms of 30kph road works and nobody working! They're doing (or were doing until they called it quits for the weekend) the road edges and vehicles are passing me at full speed.  Who leaves all the signs up when there are really no hazards other than speeding vehicles? 1 or 2kms would be fine but not 15!

Farewell to Old Wharves

On the way home from the Archway Islands we stopped to do the short 5 minute walk to Cape Farewell; the carpark was the end of a road we had passed earlier in the day and still part of Puponga Farm Park.

Cape Farewell is the most northerly point on the South Island and is located just west of Farewell Spit. It was named by Captain James Cook in 1770 - it was the last land seen by his crew as they departed on their homeward voyage.

The sun would now be perfect to shoot the Archway Islands but it’s totally in the wrong position for the Cape (hence the sun spots on my lens). I just can’t win! Morning, with the sun rising would be perfect here! I know that the Farewell Spit tour stops here on the way to the Spit & I’m hoping that when we do the tour I’ll be able to get some better shots.

It’s fascinating seeing all the coloured rock layers in the cliffs that surround the Cape. There are a number of faultlines running through the area & I wonder how long the arch will last; a few dozen years or hundreds of years or perhaps thousands? Although it’s a wonder it is still standing, what with the wave action and earthquakes.

While standing on the platform looking over the edge we could hear seal pup cries from far below. It took a few moments to find them, frolicking about in the water and resting on rocks. One pup was having fun all by himself surfing in on the waves; he’d surf in, swim back out under the waves and surf back in again.

We walked up the hill a short way and looked over the edge of the cliffs as far as we dared. If we brought the grandkids here, they’d be tied to our sides!  “ Hey look Nana, I can do roly-polys down the hill!” Oops. Plop!

The walk up to Pillar Point Lighthouse looked far too strenuous, I think I can safely say we won’t be saving that for another time!

And with that, we can now say we have visited both the most northerly & most southerly points of the South Island. This is Slope Point at the south end of the Catlins which we visited back in January.

And now for a few random shots from the road trip;

Near the Cape carpark,  the iconic New Zealand Cabbage tree (alive this time).

This friendly peacock greeted us at both ends of the Archway Island walk. He was looking for hand-outs, poking his head inside the car door as soon as I opened it and following me around when he saw I was eating food. It’s hard to believe how magnificent the colours & patterns are on a peacock, how can nature produce such finery.

You’ll remember the whitebait couple we found beside the tiny stream on our way to the Arches? We had stopped to see this flock of Royal Spoonbills (Kotuku Ngutupapa), numbering 27 (or 28, we couldn't quite decide), this is the largest flock of spoonbills we’ve seen on our travels. They were very obliging and I was able to move in quite close. That was until I slipped off the log I was quietly sidling along on my behind. Then they took flight.

The tide was all the way out by the time we made our way home along the Golden Bay shoreline and the sand flats fully exposed, making for some interesting colours and patterns.

We stopped at Puponga (near the beginning of the curve to Farewell Spit), where I’d seen a sign post indicating there was an old wharf somewhere nearby. With the tide out the piles of the old Puponga Wharf were now exposed. The Puponga Wharf was used early last century by colliers to cart coal away from a number of mines in the area.  Because of the shallow bay the wharf was over half a mile long and was thought to be the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at the time. And even with it being so long, the channel had to be constantly dredged to give access to the 1000 ton ships. Eventually silting in the bay overtook the wharf, the mines closed and the piles from the wharf have slowly rotted away.

While I was taking photos of the wharf piles I could hear a low rumble off in the distance. Far out on the edge of the of the water I could see tiny little specs moving about. David had seen the movement too and was looking through the binoculars. I zoomed in on them to see that there were a couple of jeeps and half a dozen quad bikes towing trailers about. This is a zoomed in shot.

It was then that we realised that they must be harvesting cockles commercially. I’d seen a programme awhile ago on Country Calendar and when I checked it out I found that a company based nearby were collecting "Littleneck Clams" or what we used to call cockles. The harvesting looked pretty intrusive, a scoop collecting the mud, transporting it up a small conveyor belt of sorts, spitting out the cockles into a bin on the back. The quad bikes had a row of trailers on the back with the fast filling bags. This is the zoomed in shot now heavily cropped! And that's part of Farewell Spit in the background on the left.

And finally here are two more old decaying wharves. That shallow Golden Bay has a lot to answer for!

This is the old Collingwood Wharf, it’s located on the ocean side of the town, by the 1930s the wharf was “high & dry” (this is at near high tide). A new wharf was then built on the inside of the town in the estuary but that also silted up fast and by the mid 1940s could no longer be used commercially.

Back towards Takaka is the tiny settlement of Onekaka which was once a major industrial area. During the 1920-30s local iron ore was turned into pig-iron and iron pipes at the Onekaka Ironworks and shipped from Onekaka wharf. Between 1922 and 1935, over 80,000 tons of iron was produced, with up to 180 men being employed. These rusting & rotting piles are all that remains of the wharf built by the Onekaka Iron & Steel Company.

There are other remains of old wharves in the area which I haven’t managed to visit. Yet.

Slope Point & Weir Beach, Catlins

We called around to the family to say our goodbyes and at long last said farewell to Invercargill and headed back on up the coast towards the Catlins, we stopped in for a coffee at the farm and then waved them goodbye too. "At last" we said, "We're now on our adventure proper" 

Since leaving Tauranga we have been travelling to visit family in Hawkes Bay & then onto Invercargill to be with family for Christmas. We've taken our time & enjoyed the journey but we've always had in mind that we need to be somewhere soon. Now we are free & easy, we can do anything we choose, we can stay for as long or as short as we want. We only have ourselves to consider. Famous last words.

This time we were able to stop as we passed over the Mataura River so I could get some shots of the dozens & dozens of little ramshackle huts & whitebait stands that line both sides of the river. The photos don't do it justice, but you can see that river twists and turns quite a number of times by the position of the huts along its banks.  The huts stretch way back into the background here and there are also dozens more huts further up river for a good few kilometres.

Once through Fortrose at the southern end of the Catlins coast we were back onto a gravel road travelling through mainly sheep farming country.

I wondered about the story behind this road's name. Imagine if you lived on it, explaining it every time you gave it out. How many would believe you too.

Not too far along we then turned into Slope Point Road. We were headed for a site, Weir Beach Reserve, on the edge of an estuary that allows CSC (certified self-contained) vehicles to freedom camp. And what a great spot it is, a large grassy area with a single toilet (a contained long drop) and a small water tank with a continuous supply of crystal clear spring water.

The site is located beside a huge estuary that drains out into Haldane Bay, it really is huge and very shallow, at low tide it is one great mud (in the upper reaches) & sand mass. It's hard to imagine that so much water flows through the very small entrance out into the bay. This is just the bottom end of the estuary looking towards the mouth. 

It's a great area for exploring & bird watching; there are dozens of Royal Spoonbills. They are becoming a bit too common now that we've seen so many! Unlike up north when there are just a few dotted here and there.

There were 3 other lots of campers here but the best spot was still vacant so we were thrilled to finally set up the fifth-wheeler bum into the wind (for when it returns, which it will) instead of broadside as we have been at the camping ground in Invercargill. The day had started out overcast but the cloud cover burnt off and by early afternoon it was a brilliant sunny day with not a murmur of a breeze. At last, we'd found the sun.

I bet you thought the Bluff was the southernmost point in the South Island. Well it's not; it's Slope Point an isolated & windswept site overlooking the Southern Pacific Ocean & the eastern side of Foveaux Strait. Slope Point is 7 kilometres further south than Bluff and is just up the road from where we have set up camp.

This fabulous view of Haldane Bay is looking north from the top of the hill behind the estuary which you can't see as it's tucked out of sight behind the greenery at the middle left foreground. The expanse of deep blue water you see just above it is called The Reservoir, a manmade coastal lake tucked into the rolling farmland. Curio Bay is further behind. I love the thistle foreground and the sheep in the middle. Along with the surf beach, it's quintessential New Zealand!

Later in the afternoon we drove out to the end of the road before returning to walk down to Slope Point. It was getting late in the day otherwise we would have given the sandy track at the end a go. I had visions of getting stuck & having to spend the night out here or having a very long walk home.

Up on the exposed cliffs the wind was whipping straight through us, the sea was wild and the waves huge as the tide pounded them onto the rocks. Most visitors to this area would pull in at the walk to Slope Point, if they drove a little further on they would find this huge sea cave tucked in beside a narrow canyon.

We could not get too close to the cliff edge here as the covering tussock was flat and slippery! One miss step and I'd have been on my bum and over the edge!  I felt a bit safer taking this shot further down the edge as there was a bit of height between me & the edge. I love how the hebes are growing thick & wild here & in their right environment! Another expensive plant from the garden shop.

Looking back towards Slope Point; it obviously got it's name from the gentle slope down to the edge. A tiny white dot on the point is the marker, you can also see a few cars parked on the road at the top left, this is where you walk from across private land. The walk is closed during the lambing season

Following the pilgrimage down to the Point.

The plants around Slope Point itself were quite unusual, a mix of spongy groundcover & tiny silver tussock grass (sold for around $5 a small plug at the garden centre back home) The ground cover, which I had growing in my garden in Tauranga, has tiny little white flowers. The exposed dirt & rock was smooth and rounded probably from all the salt spray & wind. And that would be a tarn if it was in the mountains.

You don't get a sense of scale here, but these are big cliffs & quite scary to be near, the noise was terrific as the waves crashed and thundered onto the rocks below.

You can tell that it's a harsh environment in this area, the trees grow at a 45 degree angle.

Underneath and on the off side of most of these macrocarpa shelterbelts which dot the landscape, are the remains of old homesteads (you can just see the roof edge here); the trees were planted to provide shelter for the early settler's  homes.

This scene reminds me of the megalithic stone passage tombs we saw in Ireland.

Haymaking; the grass has been cut and then turned by a tedder to dry, it is now ready for the baler to come along. The baler arrived just as we passed and by the time we returned the paddock was dotted with big green hay bales.