Southland

From Invercargill to Te Anau

March 7, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On the ninth day of our big trip, we drove from Invercargill to Te Anau. To drive straight there would have taken only a couple of hours, so we decided to take a longer route and see more sights. W went west and a little south, and stumbled across a historical museum in Riverton. Because it was raining, we decided to spend part of our day there—it was dry inside! The museum was very interesting. Our tour started with a movie about the Maori and the first white settlers in the area, and then we spent time exploring the wonderful exhibits. Someone noticed this poster, showing gems that can be picked up at a nearby beach, and Esther took a picture of it. The boys enjoyed the room with all the rocks! I liked the historical exhibits better, but this room was quite interesting, too.

We found Gemstone Beach on the map, so we decided to stop there. It was drizzling, but not too hard. The group of people in the center of this picture are our children. They figured that the creek might be a good place to find gems.

This is what the beach looked like. Most of these stones are about 1/2-3/4 inch in diameter. Such a variety! I don’t think we found anything too valuable. We found a lot of jasper, and some that may have been jade, and a lot of others that were just plain beautiful. We filled a 2-quart bucket with them to bring home. They are still sitting in that bucket, except for a few that I put in a quart jar to weight it down so it wouldn’t spill when I put sunflowers in it.

I was quite amused when I noticed “Windswept Trees” on the map! Yes, there were windswept trees—but not more than other places along the coast!

Here are some of the windswept trees.

Shortly after our visit to Gemstone Beach, where we ate our picnic lunch, we turned north and drove for a couple of hours to Te Anau. I would love to see what the area is really like; it was very cloudy and we couldn’t see the mountains that I’m sure were towering over us.

We saw a sign for a historic bridge, so decided on the spur of the moment to stop. That’s one thing I enjoyed about this trip. Most days, we had enough time that we could stop when we wanted to see something. We planned the trip so that, except for the last two days, we never drove more than 2-3 hours a day. This bridge was fun to walk across.

Simon standing on the bridge cables.

Simon found a rope swing down by the river, and gave the little ones some rides on it.

We saw a lot of farming!

When Miss Joy fell asleep, we decided not to stop for awhile—and then came around a curve and saw this area, with a pull-off for photos. We stopped for about a minute to enjoy the scene.

I think this is Manapouri. I was intrigued by the mountain sticking up in the middle of this picture.

I was also amused by the name on this sign.

On to Bluff!

March 4, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spent most of our day in the Catlins. There was so much to see! Such beautiful scenery. The sun even came out, making the world even more beautiful. This is very near the southernmost point of the South Island.

Can you guess which direction the prevailing winds come from?Those mountains off in the far distance are Stewart Island. For some reason, I had never realized that Stewart Island was visible from the mainland, so it was a surprise to be able to see it.

We stopped for a few minutes near Fortrose. In the mouth of a river there, you can see a shipwreck at low tide. We were an hour or so too late to see that, but the cliffs were spectacular!

Stewart Island

Miss Joy was thrilled to find a puddle! It was the first real fun she had in days. She was quite sad when we took her away from it to move on; she was getting very tired of being in the van in her carseat.

These shags were on a tiny ledge partway down the cliff.

I don’t remember where this was! It had to be near Bluff.

There were interesting murals on several buildings in Bluff.

We saw the famous sign at the tip of Bluff, but there were no parking places nearby, and there were a lot of people around, so we just drove by and went elsewhere.

Instead of taking our picture by the most famous sign in Bluff, we went back to this sculpture and took some pictures.

Then, we drove up to the Bluff Lookout. I stayed at the van for awhile to feed Miss Joy. There are some of my children at the top! Esther took the pictures below from up there; I climbed up when the baby was finished, but didn’t take any pictures.

Stewart Island

The aluminium smelter is in the center of this picture.

And, that was Day 8 of our trip! We spent the night with some friends just north of Invercargill.

Curio Bay

March 2, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Our second stop, on the day we drove through the Catlins, was at Curio Bay. The friends with whom we stayed the night before told us that we would be able to see a petrified forest if we got there at low tide, so we timed our day in order to reach there then. Mr. Imagination found this shrimp soon after we got down onto the rocks. We really enjoyed seeing rock pools again! The ones we used to explore in Kaikoura were destroyed in the earthquake, so we haven’t been able to explore them for a long time.

This bay really reminded us of the Kaikoura Peninsula. It had pretty much the same type of rocks, and rock pools everywhere.

We soon started finding petrified trees! Some were laying down, like this one.

Some seemed to have charred wood.

Some were stumps sticking up.

There was even bull kelp, like in Kaikoura!

This natural bridge was fun!

Another horizontal log.

These swirls in the side of the cliff were fascinating.

Mr. Sweetie found this crab.

We were also fascinated with the layers in the cliff.After exploring the rocks for awhile , we went back to the vans and had a picnic.

We passed this beautiful estuary right after we left Curio Bay.

Purakaunui Falls

February 28, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spent the Sunday night of our trip with some friends who live in the Catlins, an area in the far southeast part of the South Island. We asked them for some ideas of good places to visit on our way to Invercargill the next day, and one of their suggestions was Purakaunui Falls, a walk not too far from their house. We made that our first stop for the day. I took a picture of the sign at the beginning of the track because I knew I wouldn’t remember this name!

The track went through dense bush, along a creek. It was beautiful and peaceful!

The waterfall was spectacular! It reminded us of Bond Falls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, except on a smaller scale.

Mr. Diligence, Elijah, Mr. Imagination

Simon, Elijah, Mr. Sweetie in between them, and Mr. Imagination

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination

Little Miss

After we left the waterfall, we had to stop on the road for a minute because some farmers were moving a mob of sheep down the road. We didn’t actually see those sheep, but we did see this mob in some yards just down the road.

The Catlins are beautiful! Rolling green hills with bush here and there, and sheep and cattle on the hills.

At times we drove along the sea; this is a river mouth.

The beaches are beautiful!