Invercargill to Dunedin 8th - 11th February

Hey!

After a colder few days in New Zealands Fjordland and Southland we went to the Catlins in the southeast in search of some sun and dry weather....we went to the wrong place! The Catlins is like a chunk of the UK shipped across and dumped in the southern hemisphere, it looks and feels the same, only there are far less humans and far more seals/sea lions/ penguins (pretty cute).

Ignoring the weather and determined to do what we had set out to do we carried on with our plan, driving through the Catlins national park with stops to walk to waterfalls and other intresting places. At a place called Surat Bay we had some really (too) close encounters with sea lions and later that day some sightings at a better distance in Nugget Point, further east of Surat Bay.

One thing we had set out to do was see some penguins waddle ashore from their daily hunt, so far we have not been succesful, on the first night we were too late, the little guys had already gone to bed and on the second night we were too early, all that was there was one pretty confident penguin sticking his chest out and guarding the nest, we knew not to mess with him (strain your eyes enough on the photos and you might see him!) We are headed to a place north of here called Omaru tomrrow to try and finally get a succesfull viewing of the penguins coming ashore, we'll keep you updated on that!

Typically the sun came out in the Catlins on the day we were due to leave, but we decided to hang out there a bit longer and enjoy the weather on the balcony of our cottage (which we had to ourselves as there were no other bookings that night!) Then we headed to another bay to do yet more wildlife spotting, we didint regret it either. There were plenty of seals and sea lions, this time it was easy enough for us to keep our distance from the masive sea lions (they can weigh 400 kg) and we had an oppertunity to see them fight and frollock around on the beach, yjeu really didnt seem to mind having an audience!

We got into Dunedin lunchtime today and it was cloudy again :( so we stopped in the towns most famous coffe shop (which was tiny and authentic). We are leaving in search of penguins in Omaru tomorrow, bye bye for now (and thanks for all the messages, we're gonna try and get some replies in next time we get some time at a net cafe).

Love
Alex and Sophie
xxxx