NZ Land Logs 17, Year 2: South Island, Southern Tip–Papatowai
Date: Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Weather on the South Coast: Rainy, Rainy, Rainy, and Cool
Location: Papatowai, New Zealand

Our beautiful weather has left us and we woke this morning to still more rain. The temperature is cooler than it has been, but I actually have no idea what it really is–probably in the 50’s. I am still wearing sandals, but I have on jeans and a jacket. That keeps me warm enough, but there is a damp chill in the air that is not going to go away until the sun returns. Despite the weather, we persisted and had a great day.

We left Te Anau and headed south. Our first stop was in Clifden (not misspelled) which is really just a sheep station. We went there to see a suspension bridge built in 1899. We had hoped to stop in the Dean Forest to walk through a reserve of 1000 year-old totara trees, but the weather and time pushed us on. We wanted to make a few more stops and still reach the Curio Bay 160-millon-year-old petrified forest during low tide. With that as our time constraint, we stopped in Riverton to see the Riverton Rocks. After all of the fantastic scenery we have seen in the past couple of days, the Riverton Rocks paled by comparison, but it was a great ocean-side stop and we could only imagine the surfers who sometimes are riding the waves here. Our next stop was in Invercargill to tour the Southland Museum & Art Gallery. The most exciting thing we saw here was Henry, a 110 year-old tuatara. A tuatara is a reptile that I never really expected
to see, so this was a very exciting stop for me. We traveled on to The Catlins. This is a beautiful part of New Zealand, but not as dramatic as the glacier and fiord area. The beauty today with the rain and fog was the green, green grass astures filled with thousands of white sheep. These pasture lands are on the edge of the Southern Ocean, so the total picture is quite beautiful. Our next stop was in Curio Bay and the petrified forest didn’t disappoint us. Seeing something that old is very special. Next we drove to Slope Point, the most southerly point on the South Island. There are New Zealand islands further south, but this seems like the end of the earth. On a rainy day, what might two sailors do? Well, Mark and Alan were in the front seat of the van and Alan had his GPS on the dashboard and Mark had his computer out and was following our trek with his navigation software. I felt like I was back on Windbird on passage. We reached the end of the road at Slope Point and recorded the GPS reading at 46 degrees 40.105 minutes South latitude by 169 degrees 00.036 minutes longitude. Alan entered this in his GPS just in case he sails this way some day.

It was now late in the afternoon and it was time to head to Papatowai for our night’s stay at the Hilltop. We had read in Lonely Planet that this backpacker was “far too upmarket to be a backpackers” and we weren’t disappointed. We drove to the top of a hill overlooking the ocean and found our home for the night. We are staying on a sheep farm and the sheep are literally at our front door and right outside the many picture windows. The farmhouse has beautiful flowers all around and is delightful inside. We are heating the house with a wood fire tonight and sharing the four-bedroom home with another couple from Toronto, Canada, Paul and Tama. They have a son doing a semester abroad in Dunedin and are here to visit him and explore. As I am writing this log, Mark, Alan, and Helaine are talking with Paul and Tama. We are really enjoying our evening here with new friends in this lovely place. Our bedroom for tonight has a huge picture window overlooking the sheep pasture and the ocean beyond. Even if it is still raining in the morning, which I assume it will be, I can’t wait to wake up and watch the sheep grazing right outside my window. All this and it is only costing us $65 New Zealand for the room tonight.
I love New Zealand.

070307 Web Pics–Te Anau to Papatowai