The Catlins

With the farm shrinking in our rearview mirror we put the peddle to the metal, invigorated to finally get to the fabled mountainous southwest of the country.  We found, however, that there was plenty of beauty to distract and slow us down as we rounded the bend along the southern coast of the island.  The Catlins region is sort of off the beaten track, but as beautiful as one would come to expect from NZ.  The waterfalls and, much to my surprise, the beaches were where the Catlins really shined.  After the long road down the East coast region where much of the land is dry, brown and flat farmlands the Catlins contrasted sharply with lush old growth green forests - some of the only remaining old growth coastal forest in the whole country! If the little blue dot on Google Maps wasn't telling me otherwise, I'd swear we were back on the North Island.

Purakaunui Falls

McLeans Falls

Whoa!

After a few shorts walks to some amazingly beautiful waterfalls, we took a stroll along a Maori owned beach to see the Cathedral Caves.  The beach itself was amazing, and the caves only accessible during low tide when the waves aren't crashing up against the cliffs.  There were 3 or 4 large caves to be explored, but unfortunately we'd left our flashlights behind in the car.  That kept Kayleigh from venturing too far in, but I went in anyways using the flash on my camera to aid.  The farther you walked into the caves a pungent and unpleasant smell became stronger and stronger.  At first I thought that maybe one too many drunken people had sullied the caves with their urine, I came to realize that it was the smell of rotting seaweed on the cave floor.  This was some nasty dank stuff as the seaweed had almost turned to jelly, staining the sand on the cave floor a dark brown.  Holding my nose I pushed on with a group of other tourists who had flashlights, and at the end of one of the tunnels huddled against the far back wall were a pair of penguins! They were quite hard to see in the dark, and they seemed frightened by us, so I quickly retreated back to the light and fresh air of the beach.

Luckily we were to have a run in with penguins a few hours later that would prove about 1,000,000x more interesting and perhaps the most stunning wildlife experience of the entire trip.  Right down the road from our holiday park that night was Curio Bay.  The beach is a renowned habitat and popular observation point for YEPs, and every day at dusk the mother penguins come ashore form the sea to meet their babies who wait patiently for their fill of the catch of the day.  Whoa! We were not prepared for what we saw! We arrived just before sunset to see some of the young YEPs lazily cooling themselves in the cold wind.  It was mildly entertaining to watch them change position and hobble and hop along the rocks every ten minutes or so, but it was when the mother came ashore that the real action began.

The pair of penguins we had been watching marched quickly towards the shore the moment they'd spotted their mother. Whining, squawking and bowing low around her feet they petitioned her for some delicious regurgitated fish.  She largely ignored them at first, resting on the rocks and slowly making her way towards the hills (which, as luck would have it is where we were waiting with our cameras with the rest of the tourists).  Once she was comfortably away from the sea she wandered in circles, seemingly trying to gain some reprieve from the whining squeaking little ones, but every once in a while she would turn and deliver a mouthful of fish, much to the delight of one of the babies.  I say one of the babies because as we watched we noticed that the larger of the two smaller penguins would bully the other away when he came close to the mother with his cries.  They would tussle, biting and twisting and the smaller one always came away defeated.  We watched for perhaps twenty minutes as the smaller of the two penguins was pushed away and denied food time and time again.  It was a very sad spectacle to watch and we began to wonder if the smaller penguin belonged to that mother at all since she seemed unconcerned and uninterested at his lack of feeding.  Eventually she did concede and he did manage to sneak in a few bites before the other penguin could react, but the entire spectacle was incredibly captivating and a harsh reminder of the laws of nature.  Survival of the fittest indeed.