Dunedin - Curio Bay

Oh my god it was soo hot today! A perfect day to do the Catlins which is on the south coast of the South Island!

I got picked up by my new driver Rob who had decided not to bring a trailer so there was a tiny luggage section at the back and I had to put some of my stuff in the seating section with me! Luckily I was able to put stuff under the seats!

The bus seemed really friendly and everyone was chatting away straight away!

We firstly stopped at Nugget Point where there is a lovely lighthouse and some rocks that jutt out in the sea. These are the nuggets and what the point is named after - surprisingly! A bit of history - Captain James Cook, explorer extroadinaire noticed these nuggets whilst they were sailing past at sunset and there was a goldish hue cast upon them from the sun and he thought that they looked like gold nuggets! Now you get it!
We saw some seals here as well!

The next stop was at a gorgeous place called Cannibal Bay! It was amazing one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to! It's a gorqeous inlet and bay that has golden sand and the clearest calmest water! The best thing was the sea lions! There were only 3 of them but they were fantastic to see! We had to be really careful as they chase after you if you get too near! They went after one girl but she escaped! The water was so clear as well that you could see the fish in them! Little pods of silver fish! Walking back to the bus one of the sea lions had moved so we had to walk over the dunes around it! I had to put my shoes back on so I got left behind and lost in the sand dunes! Rob had to come and shout directions from a high dune as there were lots of shrubs! He then tells me that the only poisonous spider in NZ lives in the dunes! Agh! I think he was winding me up as he had told us earlier that there was a dolphin in one of the lakes that we wnet past! Apparently (his story) a scientist wanted to see what happened if he took a dolphin out of the sea and put it into a lake! It shrunk and it still lives there! Not true obviously, but I believed it for 5 minutes until someone said he was winding us up!

Next stop (a lot today!) was Cathedral Caves. These caves are only possible to visit at low tide and we had timed it perfectly! It was a 20 minute walk to the beach and a further 10 minutes along the beach to the caves! The caves were amazing, they were about 6-7 stories high and went back for ever, we tried going back but only I had a torch and it was mini LED one so not really that great! We got to the lake in one of the caves though! The seaweed was also huge! These caves would have been perfect for pirates! Ar ar me hearties!

The walk back was knackering as it was all uphill! Also the sun was seriously hot!

Finally we reached Curio Bay where we stayed at Dolphin Lodge, very nice and yes there are dolphins here!

Myself, Rob and 4 others went for dinner and it was really nice! We had a good old chat and I've been trying to persuade Rob to take us to Bluff, the most southern town in NZ!

After dinner we drove back to the hostel got the others and walked to Curio Bay itself, we were going to watch the yellow eyed penguins come in but we missed them and saw only one from a distance! Curio Bay is also a fossilised forest! I'll explain because it's quite strange! Basically you know how you get fossils of dinosaurs and sealife etc! Well they have fossilised tree stumps and logs! They are rock but you can totally see that they were once trees! A volcano wiped this region out and the trees got covered and fossilised!

Back at the hostel we had a few beers and played cards most of the night!