After picking up our car for the next month we drove south from Christchurch on the start of our road trip round the southern coast. We followed the coastal road to our first port of call Omaru in the hope of seeing some rare penguins. That afternoon we went up to the Blue Penguin Colony visitors center and through an organised viewing we saw blue penguins coming in from a day feeding at sea. They are tiny about 30cm tall and surf up the beach on waves at dusk then waddle up the rocks to their nests. You can usually only see them through this tour where you sit on a viewing stand so you get a really good view but unfortunately no photos allowed.
The following morning found us up at Bushy Beach at 7am in the hope of seeing the rare Yellow Eyed Penguins, and it would appear that our luck with seeing animals is changing. Not 10 mins after we arrived our first penguin woke up and came out of his nest to have a stretch and see what was going on. After that he had a little stroll that took him right past where we were standing, he must have been no more than a meter away. He wandered off and another one came out of his nest, also had a big stretch and then wandered past us but stopped on the way right in front us. He had a good old look at us all standing deadly still, not daring to breath - he must have wondered what on earth we were! We then watched a couple together for about 15 mins, preening, squawking and generally fussing over each other, again all about 1 meter away - brilliant!!
The following day we drove on planning to stay in Dunedin and see Albatross but there was some big rugby match on so no rooms, so after a quick stop at the Cadbury factory to stock up on a few necessities we drove onto Owaka and hit on the start of the Catlins. This area covers the south coast and is a windy coastal road that follow the beautiful beaches that stretch for miles. The next day we took our time driving along the coastline stopping at various places along the way. We started at Surat Bay (named after the Surat that was shipwrecked off the shore) and had a lovely long walk along the deserted beach with rugged hills around and huge crashing waves. We hoped to see some sea lions along the shore and just when we'd prettymuch given up Fred literally stumbled across one having a snooze in the sun. We couldn't believe our luck and stood so near again taking pictures. He didn't seem to mind at all and occasionally opened his eyes to check where we were and that was it. He was very cute to look at but they can be a bit grumpy so we had to be careful.
From Surat Bay we drove along a gravel track that wound up a cliff edge to Nugget Point. Here we walked right to the top of the cliff and had spectacular views over coastline, lighthouse and the nuggets which are big rocks in the sea which supposedly look like nuggets. We also stopped at a couple of waterfalls along our way, Purakauni Falls which weren't that impressive and McLean Falls which were.
At the end of the day we ended up in Invercargill. This was an odd city quite big but like a ghost town. It was Saturday night and we were looking for a take away place and could barely find one open, when we asked someone he looked at his watch and said we had no chance at this time of night.......it was 7pm!!!! The next day we started heading slightly inland up the west coast towards Milford Sound one of the top attractions in NZ! We based ourselves in Te Anau for 4 days in a great backpackers with our own little chalets looking out over the valley below. The main building was a big but cosy barn, with a nice kitchen and eating area, big roaring fire and pool tables. We spent our days walking the Kepler Track and the edge of Milford Sound and of course did a boat trip of the main attraction itself. Milford was quite simply stunning, created by glaciers millions of years ago, it was far more impressive than Marlborough Sound - hopefully the pictures will show just how beautiful it is.