Throughout the night, I woke up numerous times to pelting rain and by morning it was still going. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take a “rain day” because we had a schedule to keep. Solemnly we headed down the Southern Route and when we reached our first scenic stop – Waipapa Point, the rain had miraculously stopped. It was a beach where fur seals came to rest, but our expectations were not too high since we had been unlucky to see many animals on our trip. We were pleasantly surprised to see quite a few fur seals, and I had never seen the animal so up close and personal before.
By the next stop, Curio Bay, it was partly sunny. It was a petrified forest and it was not only interesting for the fossilized wood but also for the many penguins which lived on it.
Right next to Curio Bay was Porpoise Bay, where ironically there weren’t any porpoises but the bay was famous for Hector’s Dolphins which came to play there. They didn’t come to close but we were able to spot their fins occasionally popping out of the water. We did see another seal there to which we got a bit too close, and he chased us away barking. It was pretty scary to see an angry seal.
One angry fur seal
Again ironically, we stopped by a waterfall in Niagara and had lunch there as well. Unfortunately we could not go to the Cathedral cave since it was only opened in low tide and we came by too late. Our last stop was Jake’s Blowhole, and I don’t know who Jake is but I concluded he couldn’t have been very important.
"Niagara Falls"
It was quite a hike to get to the hole through sheep pastures where we had to avoid sheep droppings with every step. The hole was deep but very unspectacular and not worth the hike. I think there would have to be a hurricane, tornado, or tidal wave to make the hole blow the 50 promised meters, and in that weather I wasn’t going to hike to it.
I thought this could be a set for a horror movie.
The scenery was pretty nice and we got a few close-up snaps of sheep, which is a necessity for a NZ tourist. Then we were off to Dunedin.
Awwww