4th December 2009
Another good nights sleep after all the exhilaration and fresh air of yesterday and our luck with the weather seems to be changing, since despite our fears to the contrary, today has been another sunny, cloudless day, albeit with a cooling breeze.
One of the things we learnt yesterday on our tour was that before man arrived in New Zealand, the only mammal it possessed was a bat, hence the high number of flightless birds in the country. It seems like the majority of NZ’s native species are endangered or under serious threat all due to introduced species like the rat, dog, possom and stoat.
Much of the time it is the European settlers that get the blame for the introduction of these species, and it is certainly true that we did bring in a fair amount of them, however, the Maori arriving from Polynesia brought dogs and rats with them, so the seeds of destruction were set even before the Europeans alighted on the shores. Before we left Te-Anau, we visited the Department of Conservation run Te Anau Wildlife Centre. This harbours a number of native bird species including the rare flightless Takahe (this is one of the few places you can actually see them in the flesh), the New Zealand wood pigeon, tui, kaka and the cheeky mountain parrot the Kea which given half a chance will rip into anything rubber that may be laying around (shoes, windscreen wipers - you get the idea). This was an excellent chance to see these birds, which are not often seen in the wild.
After this brief stop, we headed out on the Southern Scenic Route towards Invercargill and the Catlins, which we want to explore over the next few days. This is a quiet, unhurried route with plenty of places to stop on the way, so suits us down to the ground.
Our first stop was Clifden Suspension Bridge, the longest span suspension bridge in New Zealand which was built in 1899. Unfortunately it was a bit too breezy here for lunch, so we moved onto Tuatapere, a sleepy little town where we stopped for an excellent and good-value lunch of salad, cold meats and quiche - delicious and all home made. Yum.
We continued on our way and stopped at a view point over Waewae Bay where we could look back to the Southern Alps where we had come from and forward to Invercargill and in the distance, Stewart Island.
After another stop at Colac Bay for a coffee we reached Invecargill and set up camp at a small motorpark with a lamb and a goat.
The one shock of the evening was when we went to the supermarket to restock our supplies and discovered that here in Invercargill supermarkets are not allowed to sell alcohol! To get our wine, we had to go to the bottle shop down the road. Antiquated as the lady in the supermarket said.