This famous coastline is situated at the south east on the South island and is a rough but beautiful place with lots of different bays, inlets, cliffs and waterfalls. Although there’s a well maintained scenic route, you can reach the best places only by gravel roads and they are a different kettle of fish. They dotted with holes and bumps and often so narrow, that it’s difficult to cross. Furthermore there is no cell phone connection at all, it’s like you would travel back in time. Fortunately we didn’t have any problem with our car despite the fact that it had been driven over 240’000 km.
The first stop was a lagoon near Invercagill, but it was a flop- nothing special just water and a normal, boring beach. However, we went on and reached at our first light house, which was nice, and saw some sea lions. They should be the only mammals we would see on this trip apart from sheep, cows, rabbits (death and alive) and of course other humans. ;-)
We travelled in a comfortable speed and stopped wherever we liked and we found out at which time we could visit the cathedral caves, which are only accessible during low tide if you don’t want to swim there. After we watched at the sunset, behind the clouds, we drove to a backpackers and there began our where-could-we sleep-tonight-journey:
The first backpacker was full apart from single rooms, which are quite expensive. But the woman there told us the next backpacker has still some beds left. So we moved on, without asking how many beds are empty here and how much they would cost - we were with stupid, which you can see shortly. Surprise, surprise the next backpacker was not empty anymore, but full and we looked on our Catlins map for other accommodations. Yes there were quite a lot so we moved on. But we weren’t successful at all. In short terms, we found just cabins, cottages or not even that, so we drove back to the second backpackers and asked there if they could phone another hostel. I had a déjà- vu, were we in the same situation on our Easter trip in Akaroa, but now with a bit more fuel left. Unfortunately no-one picked up the phone and so we were left alone again. We drove to the next bigger town and found there finally a backpacker or even better a house. Nobody was there, but there was a message left, on which was written that we could choose our room and they will come over later. One of the rooms was a dorm room with four beds – perfect.
We prepared dinner and were eating when the owner popped in and put on the heat pump. Afterwards he came again and we paid him for the night thirty bucks each.
On the next day it was freezing cold in the living room. I knew that the word insulation is not known in New Zealand, but 9.5 degree inside the house was too extreme. However, we ate our breakfast quickly and drove to the coast to take some pictures of the sunrise. Later we drove to the cathedral caves, which we could visit only during low tide. They were amazingly high and situated on the edge of a huge sand beach.
The last point on our list was Nugget Point, the last place in the Catlins. Although we wanted to see the sunset from this point, we drove back home earlier. The reason was, what else, the weather which sent us some clouds. At least it didn’t rain on our way back to Queenstown, where I drove everyone at home and parked the car in front of my home stay. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.
This should be the last trip on the south island. On the next weekend is the speaking exam and the writing will follow on Wednesday.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen