South Island Road Trip Part 2

  Thursday, 9th January 2025 It was our last day in the South Island. Bags packed and random excess food things distributed to those bags with space. Battery containing things were moved into carry-on luggage - ready for the plane flight. Breakfast was tuna-melt inspired, but without any kind of glue, too much grated carrot and not enough cheese, so it was on the dry side. This just left some ham, cucumber and Corn Thins to make a lunch of some sort out on the road. We quickly drove to Baldwin Street - the World’s Steepest Street - to test how quickly we could get up. It is steep! That was a tough walk up the road, but after a short rest at the seat at the top we carefully made our way back down, avoiding the occasional car that came racing past.  To the peninsula, wrong turn into the port - should have been a gentle left, not a sharp left! Quick U-turn and then we were actually heading to the peninsula! It’s a lovely drive along the coast and we stopped at Portobello for a co...

 Sunday 5th January At 8am we woke up with the alarm. Breakfast was made odd by the pesto flavoured milk after a transportation mishap. But we all had coffee together at the Snuggery, which made up for it. We got ready and headed into town to go to the DOC centre, where we got info about the walk planned for tomorrow, bought sunnies for one of the boys, got a mankie of the Rakiura Track to somehow become the bow of our wreath. We headed up a steep hill to church for a 10:30 start. We got in, greeted with a hymn book and a piece of paper. We found a pew, sat down and enjoyed the service. It was a lovely time with all 17 of us in the congregation, and thought provoking, but it also sent us into fits of giggles at one point. We blame the complicated and unknown Christmas in the Picture Book hymn. It was unknown to the whole congregation and admittedly a tricky one from the organist. The first run through was a few steps above abysmal, but not great. So encouraged by Rev Barb to give i...

Wednesday, January 8th We said goodbye to our great little house where the boys managed to have a respite from each other, We ended up having to apologise for being good Aucklanders and separating our recycling, as it all being seen as just rubbish. Plan one was to go to Curio Bay to see what the curiosity was about. We knew we couldn’t see the petrified forest, but we found a vantage point that showed off high-ish tide moody and voluminous crashing waves against rocks. There was a cafe there with slow service and adequate coffee, clean toilets and that was about all we needed from the point. To the falls! There are many waterfalls in the Catlins, but the one of the must dos on multiple lists was McLean Falls. The word spectacular was even used. After all the rain it seemed like it would be a sight to see. The walk was lovely,  mostly in bush, but over slippery and steep rocks towards the end. I got up to the top of the walk, and then boys being boys they had to get to ...

Monday, 6th January 2025  The day started at 7am - nice and early - where we got ready for our walk ahead. We had breakfast shortly after, and this was when Mum confirmed that she had injured her knee the day before and couldn’t do the walk with us. This was a little bit sad but the show had to go on, so we packed our lunches and prepared our bags for the walk ahead. We cleared out our room, stashed the remainder of our luggage in the shed onsite and Mum confirmed that she could stay in the lounge while we were away. We headed to the cafe for a pre-walk coffee or hot chocolate before the boys walked over the hill to the jetty in Golden Bay to catch the water taxi to Port William to start our walk. The boat ride was beautiful and a bit bumpy as we got to see the coast of Rakiura/Stewart Island on our way to Port William. The journey took about 30 minutes and we were keen to set off on our walk as soon as we docked. The walk took 5 hour in total including stops. The first half of the...

Tuesday 7th January We set an alarm to see the sun rise over Slope Point, but our estimate of early wasn't really early enough. We saw the sun come up, but o ther than being the lowest point of the South Island, and now having the rights to say that I have been there, the fuss wasn't all that to get excited about I guess…… Maybe it was too many sheep, maybe it was that my shoes and socks and feet all ended up wet after walking through the paddocks. There were some windswept trees, but we’ve seen these since we'd left Tuatapere and didn't seem worth taking photos of. The day dawned to a stun ning blue day, so we put the much needed washing on, and got to hang out clothes for the first time out in the sunshine - how delightful!!!! After some breakfast and research we headed off to drive and capture all the amazing things we had been told of…….Catlins in the early week means lots of things shut. This is a place to visit in the summer and in the weekend. The first part of t...

Friday 3rd January The day started with C offee at J’s. Such a cool local cafe run by one of the many newly arrived Filipino people into the community. The coffee making down in Invercargill is incredible. I guess we put it down to the free/low cost education at the Southern Institute of Technology. This cafe was a little one, with few tables but a great theme and an awesome barista who was happy to talk to us and tell us all about living down here. We told him how Auckland was different. We had decided that this was pretty much a ‘snow day’ especially after the day before when we felt somewhat travel weary and sick of each other. So, what to do with free Netflix? Binge watch Squid Games, season 1, of course. To break up the day we headed out to try and find an i-site or something like it. No such thing to be found. It may have something to do with the museum under construction, but the DoC office was shut for Christmas, so no real help was on offer there. The trip wasn't all in va...

Saturday, 4th January  With all the best intentions of getting out of our great accommodation by 9am, it was just before 10am that we left. A trip to Pak’n’Save to get all the necessary things to eat on the island as we suspected there may not be too many gf options.  With not much info around Invercargill, we wondered if maybe Bluff would be better in our preparation to travel to Rakiura / Stewart Island. We walked around this fishing village, taking photos of the eclectic art, and reading about the specific history of the area. Nothing was open. We drove to Stirling Point - the northern site of the chain sculpture representing the linkage of the Mainland to Stewart Island. Of course, we stopped for coffee and then went on a short walk in the Motupōhue reserve.  We have been having a lot of fun playing a series of  alphabetical category games as we walk. These have provided good entertainment for the boys. This particular game was “Notable events from 20...

  The day started slowly as per usual around 8, of course the parents got up quicker and headed down to set up the breakfast items before they headed off on their daily coffee trip, which according to them was alright. The younger ones headed down a little bit later with the better one arriving first. Breakfast was eaten, the little one had all the milk so the rest of our breakfasts were a bit dry 🙁. The kids were then in charge of doing the dishes and packing all the food up as the parents were still enjoying their coffees. This went relatively well, but the bigger brother ended up doing more work as the weaker one was stuck on his phone. The car was packed quickly, Mum managed to lose her phone in her back pocket (impressive, but the hunt for it wasn’t) before we finally got on the road to Invercargill with many stops along the way. Our first stop was a lookout where we came across which had a nice view of the ocean and a signpost that had bee...

Wednesday, 1st January 2025 The alarm went off at 6:30am and we promptly got up, got ready, and were out before 8am to leave in plenty of time to make the 1hr 40 min drive. However, the drive took less than 40 minutes actually. The last 20 km were on gravel roads, complete with loud, RED hazard signs. What we noticed was the clouds and the chill of Fiordland National Park at such an hour early.  With time to fill we found a 40 minute loop walk. However, even with photos and discussions it took about half that. So we decided to do the next walk, but the mud didn't seem worth going through.  Finally Kevin arrived with the jet boat. A quick signing away risk and life jacket fitting and we were off. We went towards Mary’s Island to hear about the princess skeleton in the cave. The cloud was down all around us so we could barely see the edges of the lake and it was cold. The handrails were heated fortunately so our hands did not freeze. We then got a small bay called Teal Bay after...