The Catlins - part two

After we left Owaka, we headed towards Papatowai. We had a stop on the way to walk down to the Matai and Horseshoe Falls, and the Rail Trail Walk.

The Horseshoe Falls were more like horsetail falls given there has been very little rain. The escarpment curves all the way around to and past the right of the picture, but it was mostly dry.

I'm not sure if this is from an old train or a some piece of mining equipment.

There is about 2kms of an old rail-bed that is part of a walking trail. I walked down to it with David and through the old cutting, but left him to walk the length of the bed alone. I returned to the motorhome, moved it off the berm and into the carpark (there was no space when we arrived) and sat and had a read and a cup of tea while I waited. It is wonderful to be able to make a snack and a drink wherever we pull up!

We stayed overnight at the DOC camp at Papatowai - what a lovely place! And thanks to Joyce and Alan who we met at Taieri Mouth for that recommendation. After a few days of cooler weather it was lovely to sit out in the sun - we even parked in the sunshine ...

In the sunshine at the DOC camp at Papatowai. Plenty of room for us to park out in the middle. The place had several vans and tents by nightfall and still wasn't anything like crowded. David phoned DOC though to let them know that the iron maiden used to hold people's fee envelopes was full and the envelopes could be snaggled out - the ranger was on his way so no worries.

We stopped at the Florence Hill Lookout - amazing! 

From the Florence Hill lookout. As with shots taken by paparazzi, you cannot see the hordes of other tourists around us also with cameras out ...

Florence Bay showing more of the contours - David took this from inside the motorhome while I was stopped on the berm.

We drove the 1km up a windy gravel dusty road to the Tautuku Board walk - another place developed wonderfully by both DOC and Forest & Bird. There used to be a settlement and a railway through there - some remnants remain and the plan shows where houses were. Clearly the locals whose forebears lived here are keen to preserve the history. Lots of logging took place as late as the 1930s, hence now the bush is quite low manuka.

The path to and from the Tautuku Board Walk was through an old rail cutting and manuka shrubland - not bush as it is too short and nowhere near as dense as is usual in NZ bush. Those trees are coming back regardless of what humans think or do re building cuttings for railways!

The reeds are protected flora - I didn't see anything of a fauna nature that lives among them but there are definitley things in there ... The purple-ish tinge shows the flowers

He was able to walk and look at me at the same time even though the boardwalk wasn't straight ... The bush in the background is across the estuary and is Maori land, preserved and untouched. That is probably what this side of the estuary looked like before the settlers came and logged it out.

The mudflats on the estuary with the forest on Maori land - yay!!

We did a diversion off to Curio Bay where there is a petrified forest.

You can go down to the edge of this forest. David did, but I spent the time chatting with the DOC ranger who was keeping an eye on the people down there - making sure they didn't cross the rope barrier and stand on the fossils.

One thing we noticed was a distinct drop in the number of motorhomes and campervans once we left the Catlins. 

We headed on the inland route to Gore as just a place to stop overnight on our way to the Mackenzie Country. It would be safe to say that Gore is not really a tourist destination - unless you are a country and western fan - it is NZ's C&W capital ...

I was pretty tired by the time we got there and couldn't make a decision to save myself - so instead of being away from the main road with the trucks etc that roar past for the rest of the day and overnight, we ended up in a motorcamp on a side street that, you guessed it, was bordered by the main road - AAARRRGGGHHH!!! It was a bit reminiscent of trundling on the boat looking for a mooring spot away from the noise of the A38 and ending up within 100 metres of it ...

We thought the Catlins was a beautiful area, and I think we need to go back and see more of it. But there was more beauty of different kinds waiting for us a bit further inland.