Tag Archives: Landscapes

The Dunedin Line

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Friday 20 March 2026 – Once again, that we were travelling was borne in on us reasonably heavily, as an early alarm was needed to ensure we were up, packed, breakfasted and ready to be collected at 0720 to be taken down the road for an 0800 ferry back to Bluff.  The morning light was, erm, “interesting”,

and didn’t seem to be sending out omens for a good day.  However, it became clear that whatever weather was causing this light was moving away from us, as we had a calm crosing back to Bluff and sunshine for the rest of the day.  Our destination was Dunedin, 228km away, a journey which could be done in under three hours. Of course, Jane had other ideas and had found some diversions along the way, so we drove largely along the coast for about 300 kilometres and spent the whole day on the journey. A large part of the day was spent investigating sights in the Catlins, a very scenic and occasionally rugged bit of south east New Zealand.

We needed to get some fuel for the car, and Jane had noted that there was a fuel station and café at Fortrose, so we stopped at the Fortrose café and restaurant.  The initial indications were not particularly hopeful; these were the fuel pumps.

They strenuously resisted all of our candidate credit cards, so we decided that we could just get a quick coffee and find fuel elsewhere. The café seemed pretty rustic inside, but the coffee was good and the lady serving us, hearing of our lack of refuelling success, offered an arrangement whereby she used her card to cajole petrol out of the pump and we paid her back in the café. Presumably not the first time she has done this for a punter, and excellent service to go with the great coffee (yes, and scones).

Both vehicle and inner persons refuelled, we carried on,

and it was clear that we had re-entered logging country.

The part of the south coast we were driving passed the southernmost point of the South Island, Slope Point, so obviously we had to call in there. It’s a slightly strange location, with very clear indications as to which direction the prevailing wind blows in (though the conditions for us were calm).

The actual southernmost point

is not reachable by car; one has to park up by a rather ritzy visitor info centre

and cutely decorated loo.

Thence it’s about 500 metres, past a nice view or two

to Slope Point itself, where there’s a navigation aid of some sort

presumably to keep ships off the rather prominent rocks there. This is the selfie spot. We don’t do selfies, but we had to acknowledge where we were, so this is our compromise.

We may be at the southernmost point of the South Island, but, at 46° 40′ 40″ it’s not that far south.  By comparison, leafy Surrey in the UK is 51° north of the equator, so we’re closer to the tropics here than we are at home.

Our next stop took us from one curio, the southernmost point, to another – Curio Bay. This is home to a petrified forest, something I’m sure I’ve never seen before, though Jane swears I have. This is what a petrified forest looks like from above.

I’m glad there was an info board to show us the main features, otherwise I might have dismissed this as being rather dull. But the info board allowed me to see that there were some tree trunks lying down

so I hope that helps make sense of the aerial view. Looking closely at these trunks, one can clearly see evidence of a wood grain, which is fascinating within a stone structure like this.

Scouting further, one can find tree stumps;

in fact the whole area is littered with them – they’re the knobbly bits sticking up from the base rock.

The forest is some 180 million years old, give or take a year or two. The now petrified logs and tree stumps, from ancient conifers closely related to modern kauri and Norfolk pine, were buried by ancient volcanic mud flows and gradually replaced by silica to produce the fossils now exposed by the sea. The actual area of this forest stretches all the way back to Slope Point. Known fossil forests of this age are very few throughout the world, and this is one of the most extensive and least disturbed of them. They’ve put up a visitor centre, café and gift shop, mind.

Onwards, then: next stop Niagara Falls.

No, really; the falls are called Niagara Falls, although,

in truth they’re not that impressive. According to an info board, they were given the name by a surveyor with a sense of humour, and good for him, I say. The river there is actually the site of a couple of whitebaiting platforms.

Until researching this phenomenon, I hadn’t realised that “Whitebait” means very different things in different countries. Whitebait in New Zealand means something entirely different from what we’re used to in the UK. In the United Kingdom today, whitebait principally refers to young sprats, most commonly herring. In New Zealand, it means the juveniles of five galaxiid species which live as adults in freshwater rivers and streams. Four of these five species have been classified by the Department of Conservation as endangered, so the fishing of them is carefully controlled.

I was amused to notice, as we left the Falls, that precautions had been taken to remind any visiting Americans, who might have been taken in by the name, to take care as they drove on.

From Niagara Falls, we went to Koropuku Falls. We weren’t sure what to expect, but set off on the forest track that would lead us to them.

The track, rather nicely laid using lengths of tree fern trunks to make it passable even though it was very damp, eventually led to

an end point where there were no waterfalls, so it was a pleasant enough bush walk, but nothing that would have pulse of an Icelander racing. In researching the falls for this post, I found an entry in atlasobscura.com which rhapsodises thus:

“The Catlins region has a bounty of breathtaking waterfalls, the best is arguably Koropuku Falls— a majestic waterfall with an enchanting bush walk.”

Hmmmm…not our experience.

If you read to the end of the post, it finishes by saying

“Like most smaller waterfalls, the density of the drop depends on recent rain activity.” Other sites also are breathless in their adoration: “a true hidden gem“, “a captivating waterfall” and so forth. So our timing was a bit off, I suppose.  Visit only after rainfall if you want to see the falls as pictured on these sites.

We had hoped to visit the Cathedral Caves on our drive today, but time was not on our side. The caves can only be accessed at lowish tide, and that was earlier in the day – we knew this because its website gives clear times for access each day. We also wondered how the access would be managed, given that tide times change each and every day, and were rather impressed to see that it is managed handraulically.

We moved on, therefore, towards the next Thing To See, through countryside which showed less and less evidence of logging activity.

We had a brief stop-off at a heritage railway tunnel, the world’s southernmost railway tunnel, which was an amusing diversion, but, frankly, photographically somewhat challenging. Photo Nerdery alert: the phone does a better job than the Nikon of giving an impression of the tunnel

Phone
Nikon

Using someone else’s phone as a torch helps

One can clearly see the construction of the tunnel, which was dug in the 1890s using only picks and shovels – that must have been back-breaking labour! – and built with stone and hand-made local bricks.

The penultimate stop on this very peripatetic route was at Nugget Point. It’s named after the Nugget Rocks, and there’s a lighthouse there to keep ships away from them.

It’s a windy road to get there

and a somewhat up-and-down walk from the car park to reach the Point itself.

The Nugget Rocks make an impressive sight

and I was struck by the rock mid-right in the photo above, which appears to have a hole in it.  And indeed it does – waves wash up and travel right through it.

One wonders how on earth that happened.

Our final stop was at Sod Cottage, near Clutha.

This is a heavily-restored heritage site. Originally built in 1862, it was used as a dwelling, store and bar, servicing the travellers making their way to central Otago, probably seeking to mine gold there. It was later used as a school room. It fell into disrepair and was saved from total ruin, starting in 1970, and restored to what we can see today. The walls are two feet (60cm) thick and made of moistened clay. The interior is not accessible, but one can squeeze in through the (unlocked) front door and peek in through the mesh guarding the interior, which is dressed in period furniture and accoutrements.

So it was 6pm when we arrived in Dunedin, having been on the road since 9am – an absorbing nine hours spent viewing a wide variety of different sights and crossing the Catlins.

We had just the one day in Dunedin and we used it well; much to tell in the next post!

 

The Third Island

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Wednesday 18 March 2026 – We could afford to make fairly stately progress southwards because our only dependency was on a ferry whose time had been rescheduled to 5.15pm, and that was a mere 200km away or so.  The weather outlook was pretty decent,

so the Southern Scenic Route seemed a good idea. We exited Te Anau past the Fjordland Vintage Machinery Museum,

which was intriguing, but not sufficiently so as to divert us. The scenic route was, indeed, scenic, with some lovely cloud pattern in the hills.

Jane had looked out a coffee stop at the Brunel Peaks Cafe,

which didn’t immediately look promising, but turned out to be a delightful choice – excellent coffee and cake, displays of local art and produce and friendly service.

As we wended our way southwards, we noticed an area where tussock grass had taken over – not something we’d seen before.

Tussocks are normally something you’d only see in alpine areas in NZ, because by and large the lowland areas were forests – not a tussock growth area – until people came and then they converted forest to farmland. So it was interesting to see the tussocks making a comeback where (I assume) farmland has been left untouched for a while.

Our next stop was at the Clifden Suspension Bridge. The name sounds suspiciously like the famous bridge in Clifton, Bristol, in the UK, and actually the NZ one even looks a little like Brunel’s creation.

It was built in 1899 to a design by the Southland County Engineer C H Howarth, and at the time had the longest main span (111.5m) in the country. It’s a pedestrian-only bridge these days. Jane noticed that there were some young things Up To Something on the far side of the bridge, accompanied by much shouting and laughter.  In the end, this is what they were doing.

They were wearing safety helmets, and so we supposed that what they were up to was legit; but they were clearly having some fun.

Jane had noticed something else on our route that had piqued her interest:

The Templeton Flax Mill Heritage Museum. All over New Zealand we had heard of the importance of flax to both indigenous and immigrant communities, so we were interested to understand more.

A few words about flax, first.  New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) is a completely different plant from that which we call flax in the UK (Linum usitatissimum); delicate, blue-flowered UK flax is cultivated for its fine fibres – used to make linen – its seeds and their oil. In the UK, flax seeds are linseeds: I remember from my childhood, for example, the importance of linseed oil for treating cricket bats to stop them cracking or splintering. New Zealand flax has huge spear shaped, architectural, fibrous leaves, of huge importance to the Maori because of its “flaxibility” (ho, ho). The coarse, strong fibres could be made into rope, clothing, baskets, nets, canoe sails, even; the plant has medicinal properties and food value. Flax plants grow everywhere across the country; it’s amazing that something so easily available is of such huge utility. When the European settlers encountered the plant and recognised its utility, and recognised the similarities between the Maori processing of its fibres and the processing of flax back home, they applied the familiar name of “flax” to this foreign plant.

So, we were intrigued. The Templeton Mill Museum is only active on special Open Days or by appointment, so Jane got in touch with the owners to see whether there was any chance we could see it. They said that they weren’t officially open today but that, since the door was unlocked, we were welcome to look inside!

It’s the only authentic flax mill plant operating on its original 1940s site, showcasing 1860s to 1970s flax processing technology. It was in full operation until 1972, amazingly.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of information inside about how the final flax products are made from the leaves (foreground below)

The process involves harvesting, stripping, washing, bleaching, drying and scutching (a process of removing impurities from the fibres) before the fibres are baled into hanks (background above). Outside the mill, various varieties of flax are grown

and there is a drying rack for the fibres on display.

All of these various stops were pleasant diversions on our journey, which led us to Bluff, where we had to catch a ferry to Stewart Island. This ferry is another exclusive by RealNZ, by the way. We had thought that perhaps we could grab a coffee in the ferry terminal building, but the operation was a bit more basic than that; they operate a car park for ferry travellers and there’s a waiting room, but that’s about it. When we checked in, the chap who helped us suggested we went to “the pub across the road” for a coffee whilst we waited.  So we did – sort of. Actually, we’d noticed, on our way in, that Bluff was a very basic sort of town, but it did seem to have a lot of street art. So before we went for coffee, we strolled around for a bit, and found a decent array of murals

and other installations.

There was an artist’s studio/shop called JIMI RABBITZ, with some really bizarre creations,

and (allegedly) the world’s most southerly chippie.

We called into the Eagle Hotel for a coffee

but they didn’t do hot drinks, so we had a cold beer instead. It was a pretty hardcore traditionalist sort of place, with a monosyllabic barman, a dartboard, the rules of Quoits posted on the wall, and other pub games of a more mysterious nature available to play, too.

The time came for us to board our ferry, which was a catamaran type, a bit smaller than the ones we’d travelled on the day before,

and so we trooped on board and took our seats.  The skipper gave the usual safety chat and then set off.  He said that it was “pretty calm” on the water. If so, I’d hate to be in what he called rough, because on the first stretch of the journey, it felt like the ferry was airborne at times. It certainly crashed around a lot, but he seemed unfazed by it and no-one on board was sick, so maybe this was normal. After a bit everything calmed down and the remainder was a smooth journey (about an hour in total). I noticed, as we headed into Stewart Island, that the skipper had given one of the crew a chance to have a go at driving.

So: Stewart Island, then. Had you asked me, before this trip, how many islands constituted New Zealand, I would have said “two”; and I would have been wrong. There are three main islands, and Stewart Island is that third island, roughly 1800 km² in size. (You’ll remember, of course, that Cook fudged the island issue when he did his charting of the country in 1769/70, when he came up with this chart:

Drawn by James Cook - International Cartographic Association, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1416909

He deliberately left Stewart Island as part of the mainland in order to fool those damn’ Frenchies and stop them sniffing around with a view to claiming the island for themselves. But, as we’d just confirmed for ourselves, it really is an island. 85% of it is a national park and the only settlement is a town called Oban, which is a small place with fewer than 500 permanent inhabitants.

We were due to be staying at the Kaka Retreat. Rather than having to heave al our bags on to the ferry, we had only brought our backpacks and one small suitcase, so, since everything in Oban is close to everything else in Oban we were happy with a plan to walk to our accommodation. On the way I was less than happy, because although the distances are short, the streets are not flat and although it was a short walk it was quite a steep one, so I was glad to get there. There was no reception evident, so we wandered in and Jane was greeted by a woman at the first chalet who simply said “you’re not in this one”. Somewhat taken aback, Jane asked how we found out which one we were in, and was told to call the Bay Motel. She did so, and that’s when we found out that we’d managed to walk straight past the Bay Motel reception committee on the wharf – they had been waiting there with a sign with our names, and a van to take us up to the Retreat. Thank God for mobile phones, eh?

Anyway, the lady in charge came up from the wharf with a couple of other guests who were staying there and showed us around the accommodation. We settled in (yes, Twinings finest Earl Grey was involved) and prepared ourselves for our activity that evening, which was due to start in about an hour’s time….

…and which you’ll have to read about in the next entry. See you there!

 

Making Haast (Slowly) to Wānaka

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Saturday 14 March 2026 – The morning dawned at Lake Moeraki with bright sunshine, and mist on the lake.

We had to leave the Lodge, but there were birds fossicking about outside our bedroom, and so I had another go at photographing them. There were a couple of Tomtits,

and I finally managed to get a photo of a Fantail fanning its tail!

It’s about 170km from Lake Moeraki to Wānaka, which was our next stop. According to Google Maps, it should take two and a half hours. It took us seven. Admittedly, one of those hours was due to my forgetting to hand in our room key before we left the Wilderness Lodge. I only discovered this at our first stop, providentially just 30 minutes down the road, so we hightailed it back to the Lodge and I slunk in and left the key on an unattended reception desk. Hopefully, no-one will have noticed.

Our first stop, though, was rather charming. Virtually the entire journey to Wānaka is through bits of the country which have the Haast label, so Julius (or Johannes, depending on your choice of AI) von Haast was obviously a chap of considerable pith and moment as far as New Zealand is concerned. There’s a Township, a River, a Mountain, a Pass (which leads to Wānaka) and, oh yes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With a visitor centre. To get to Haast, we had to cross the longest single-lane bridge in New Zealand

which is so long it has two passing places along it.

It’s rare to find a visitor centre described as “outstanding”, but this one is, and it’s a description that’s hard to fault. For the centre attendant upon such a small town, it’s huge,

and has a lot of information inside.

The information covers the environment, the ecology, the geology, the history and the wildlife – and it has a lot of each of those.  One animal we’d hoped we might be able to see in the flesh but couldn’t is the Fjordland Penguin, or Tawaki.  The reason we couldn’t see it is twofold: it’s endangered, and therefore somewhat rare; and its breeding season is December so it has wisely buggered off in search of a life at sea. But the visitor centre had an example in a display case

which shows it’s a crested penguin, similar to the Macaroni and Rockhopper penguins we saw on our Antarctic trip, in South Georgia and the Falklands. (Coo! Three plugs in one sentence! Nice one, me!) There’s also some decent scenery outside to be taken in.

After returning the key to the Lodge, we took coffee at the Spiker cafe again before pressing on towards Wānaka. The Lodge had thoughtfully provided driving information, which gave us the very strong impression that there was a lot to see on the route, and Jane’s researches had confirmed this. As well as the formal Things To Gawp At, there were times we could stop and marvel at the landscape surrounding the River Haast

including its confluence with the River Landsborough.

There were three waterfalls to be Gawped at: Roaring Billy

Thunder Creek;

and Fantail.

We had hoped to be able to see the Gates Of Haast, which is an impressive gorge with a road bridge over it; but the road was subject to roadworks and we would have been pretty unpopular had we stopped, so we had perforce to skip that. The final Gawpee was the Haast Pass Lookout, which, we discovered, was up quite a climb. The track to it is through rainforest

and is occasionally steep and clambery.

But were we put off? No! (Well, not since we were half way up by this point, anyway.)

The view at the top is worth the climb, particularly once you combine that with the smug sense of achievement attained through clambering 100m vertical up an average 1-in-7 slope.

Just as we left the lookout platform at the top, three young girls came charging up with some kind of music playing boom box, obviously intent on a bit of a shindig, so we had a narrow escape there.

After the lookout, the road drops down towards Wānaka, skirting two lakes, Wānaka

and Hāwea.

It’s clearly very photogenic, but what also struck us was the complete change in landscape, from green rainforest to tawny grassland. It’s a very sudden and marked change

and this is the landscape surrounding Wānaka. Stopping to gawp at the scenery was the main reason that a two-and-a-half hour drive took us seven hours to complete, and we’re glad that we made a day of the journey. We arrived at our accommodation, the Criffel Peak View B&B, and were made heartily welcome by the very animated host, Caroline, who provided us with tea and gave a running commentary about the state of the town, which, she said, would be utterly heaving, because of the A&P (Agricultural and Pastoral) Show, now probably the biggest show of its kind in the country. Fortunately, we’d taken a bite to eat en route, at the Blue Pools cafe in Makarora, so didn’t need to find a place at a restaurant. But we fancied a glass of something cold and a peek at the town, so we pottered in as the sun set

and found the bit by the lake where all the bars are.

Indeed, it was, erm, vibrant.

but we managed to find somewhere to sit and order a drink, and absorbed the vibe as the light faded.

We headed back to our accommodation and did the sort of thing that occurs to one after a glass or two: we looked at the stars. Well, it was a clear night, and we’re in a different hemisphere from normal, so it’s an obvious thing to do, right?

Photographically, it was always going to be a bit challenging, what with no tripod and that. but we took a few pictures with Night Mode on the phone

Southern Cross visible towards the bottom
Might this be the Milky Way?

and a couple with the Nikon, handheld,

Southern Cross towards the bottom
Maybe the Milky Way?

and the results were not entirely unusable.

That was it for the day, then. We had no formal activity planned for the morrow, but Caroline had planted an idea about what we could do with a day on our hands. So that’s what we’ll probably do and you’ll have to come back to find out what that was.