New Zealand - Fiordland National Park

We arrived in the Fiordland NP and the weather turned for the worse

Not that it stopped a walk through a eerie forest..

We stopped to camp at Lake Gunn, where the cloud imposed on the view

but the next morning.....

We then travelled up towards Milford Sound, taking in the views along the way

Which were all spectacular

With plenty of gushing rivers...

..racing down valleys carved out 10 thousand years earlier by glaciers.

These birds are called Kea, and they stop and wait at the car parks to see if people will feed them...

Which people do, even though they're not supposed to

The mountains come virtually down to the road, as you can see

The whole drive can take 2 hours, but with stopping, walking and camping, it took us 30 hours...

There's a gushing chasm along the way which roars

And plenty of rivers linking lakes and eventually the sea

You get dolphins, octopus, ducks, fish and a rare type of penguin here

Paul, at the Eglinton River, leading down from the lakes, on our way back

You can also take a plane or helicoptor ride around it, if you're feeling flush

Top day, but the twisty hairpins and swooping bends really made me miss my bike!

New Zealand - Catlins to Fiordlands

We couldn't get any further away from home, unless we started swimming

Paul, with his fiercest 'intrepid explorer' pose

And me, with mine..

We went to Curio Bay, which has a petrified forest.  170 million years ago, heavy rain washed volcanic ash downstream, swamping this forest.  The high silca content turned the trees to stone within months.  No mention of a basilisk anywhere!

Paul was very impressed with it..

Although at dusk, the beach had other visitors

This is the Yellow-Eyed Penguin, which is quite rare and only in this region of the world

Geronimo!

Like all pengiuns, rocks aren't really their medium

So they amused us with their comical walking and climbing

They would get out of the sea, after a hard day's fishing, to feed the chicks in the nest on the cliffside

And to pose for a few pictures...

They're around knee height.

And as you can see by the right fin, are closely monitored

As we left the Catlins, we stopped at McCrackers Viewpoint, where you can look across to the Cameron Mountains up the beach

And where the sea and wind, we quite unforgiving

The river downstream from Lake Manapouri and Te Anau, which is used for hydro electrc power generation

Lake Te Anau, where we stopped for a picnic

And a photo..

It was the start of the Fiordlands, so we were expecting something good..

New Zealand - Otago, Nugget Point & Surat Bay

Otago is a pretty peninsula a stone's throw away from Dunedin

With dramatic cliffs

With allsorts of birds nesting, like these Spotted Shags

It's formed from the remnants of an ancient volcano

Which means you can go up the cliff road and see both sides of the peninsula, with impressive sights

Afterwards, we went further west to Nugget Point, a set of cliffs jutting out into the sea

These rocks meant a lighthouse being erected here in 1870, it taking the lives of many sailors on smaller craft

Seals can be seen from the cliffs

Further west again, we went for a river walk, only accesible at low tide

And then went to Surat Bay, where not all the rocky looking lumps were actually rocks...

There are numerous sealions along the beach, who come up to bathe and sleep....

They can get quite big, so you have to keep your distance.  This one had loads of scars on itself

Next we went to see some waterfalls.  It had rainned all day the day before, so they were gushing!  This is Purakaunui

This is Matai Falls

This is also Matai Falls

And this is McLean Falls