We woke up to rain again but I am pleased to say that it cleared quite quickly and although the day has been a bit showery it has been a lot warmer and not windy at all! In fact we have had quite a lot of sunshine and no mist!

We did a local bush walk in Kaka Point after we checked out of our motel, which was good but seemed a bit longer than we had been led to believe. We then continued along the Catlin's Coast route until we came to Purakaunui Falls which was a pleasant walk and attractive when we reached them. Our second stop was at Matai Falls - again a pleasant walk and a rather more spectacular sight.

Young tom tit about to check himself in the mirror

We had quite a hard rain shower after this and were glad to get to The Lost Gypsy for a coffee and an indoor activity! We knew a little of this place as Steve's cousin, Kay had told us about it. It was an old bus housing a fascinating set of automata made by the owner out of recycled materials! It was extremely quirky but most enjoyable.

Inside The Lost Gypsy

Then on we went to find lunch at The Whistling Frog near McLean Falls. We had an exceptional lamburger with trimmings. We refused desserts as we had a plan for later!

We retraced our steps slightly then to go back to a short boardwalk stroll down to the nearby estuary and the chance of seeing the elusive fernbird. Unfortunately it remained elusive but the walk was enjoyable until the sandflies caught up with us. For those of you who don't know about sandflies they are found in NZ often near water, when it's warm. They bite like midges but the bite is much more itchy and they attack you round your ankles and wrists in droves! I wouldn't have mentioned this particular episode except that they feature later in the day in a more extreme attack!

McLean Falls was our next walk and well worth it. These falls were magnificent! As we had to pass our lunch venue on our way back from the falls we decided to call in and have an ice cream - see paragraph 4! This is our first ice cream this holiday so we aren't doing too badly!

McLean Falls

We had two more places we wanted to visit on our Catlin's trip but I'm afraid to say both were blighted by the aforementioned sandflies. The first was at Porpoise Bay to see the Hector's dolphins. We did see them and would have stayed longer but for the black attack! We also wanted to see the petrified forest at Curio Bay and again managed a quick 2 minute look before the next onslaught! Although we have insect repellant with us (2 sorts) they don't seem to deter them so perhaps we need to look for something else.

After that we travelled on to Invercargill and to our motel for tonight. We have another very nice room but no special view today. Invercargill from brief acquaintance is very flat with very broad roads and feels a bit American. Also it's quite a bit bigger than we thought it might be. We aren't going to get to know it though as we fly off to Stewart Island first thing in the morning!