Pi Day

After leaving Milford Sound, we drove through Invercargill towards the Catlins, an area of New Zealand that very few tourists visit yet holds rare beauty. There are no tourist buses and very few people, yet the beaches, wildlife,  and ocean views are stunning. The Catlins boasts one perfectly circular beach with perfect sand after another.

To experience the Catlins you must drive along the Southern Sceneic Highway and stop off at the numerous places along the way. In order to experience every stop that the park has to offer you would need at least 1 – 2 weeks. We only had one day, so we picked 3 special places to see.

Our first stop was Curio Bay. The beaches there are picture perfect. They are so perfectly circular that you could calculate the length of each beach using pi. The special aspect of this bay, however, is not the beauty of the beach. Hector dolphins enjoy surfing in the waves there. These dolphins are extremely rare and are typically only seen along the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Unfortunately, the perfect beach was all that we saw. As we enjoyed walking along the beach it was clear by the exposed coral that we were at low tide. This meant that it was imperative to reach our next destination quickly.

We boarded the Batmobile and headed off to the Cathedral Caves. Here you enter Maori land, pay a small fee, and hike down a 15 minute path of dense old growth forest to the beach where the caves reside. The beach was, of course, perfect and there was no one on it. We were very fortunate to arrive when we did, as the tide was coming in and we only had an hour before it would be too dangerous to stay in the caves. The caves are very tall and deep. One could walk into the caves quire far, and if you have a flashlight, you could squeeze into some small gaps in the rock and find new halls to explore. Given the short time period and having a 17 month old on my back (who was scared of the dark) we decided to keep our visit short, walk through the now ankle deep water and head back to the beach.

Our final stop was two bays known as Nugget Point and Roaring Bay. They are situated quite close to one another and they both promise views of penguins, dolphins, seals, and possibly sea lions. The yellow eyed penguins were far away, however, their stance was recognizable as they hung out in crowds along the rocks. Seals played around in the kelp and would sometimes climb up onto the rocks to sun themselves. Every so often it was possible to see a small Hector dolphin jump out of the water. There were no seal lions, however. This was actually quite strange as they typically hang out in droves on the beach. It would be like going to Jasper without seeing Wapiti.

After Milford Sound, almost anything would seem mundane, however, it was special to see so much wild life and to be away from the crowds of tourists (and sand flies). Our final stop was in Ashburton, a small farming community just outside of Christchurch. We had only two more nights in the Batmobile.