Thu, 16 Nov: The Catlins Forest Park

View from walk to Nugget Point Lighthouse
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Woke up around 8am, and fixed ourselves some breakfast.  For breakfast we have been fixing ourselves oats, and having a tea.  For a real treat we add pecans and apple bits!  Fixing breakfast ourselves gets off to a faster start in the morning, usually.  The plan today is to see some of the spots in the Catlins as we make our way up the east coast towards Dunedin.

Todays highlights:

• Revisit Curio Bay  to take some pics of the area where we had seen the penguins the nite before.  No penguins as they are usually seen at sunrise and dusk, however, we did see the remains of a petrified forest:  Erosion caused by the waves had eroded soft sandstore to reveal a forest some 160 million years old.
• Walk to Purakaunui Falls.  Short walk of ten minutes to a scenic waterfall (see pics).  The vegetaion was not unlike what we saw in the Eden Project in the UK:  Tropical rain forest.  Met a couple and had a long chat about this and that all the while watching the waterfall. Wish I could bottle that moment.
• Walk to Nugget Point Lighthouse.  Might have been the highlight of the day.  Spectacular coast views, and some glimpses of sea lions on the rocks below. While WE didn't see the ice berg, there were stories on the front page of the papers about an iceberg that was drifting off the coast in the vicinity of the lighthouse.  Some folks on the walk said they had seen it with their binoculars.  Yeah, maybe!  Still, a good story.

View from walk to Nugget Point Lighthouse (Some 16kms out is an iceberg!)
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Thanks to a TI rep in Balclutha we stayed in motel in Dunedin that had wifi access.  Not fast wifi, but wifi none the less, so I was able to download the latest pics to Flickr and Realtravel.

Dinner was at 7pm here in downtown Dunedin.  Our first choice had a long waiting list, so we ended up at the Speights Ale House for a super meal.  As it was the first food we had had since breakfast it was really, really good.  Deb opted for the sausage and mash, and I went with the salmon.

View from walk to Nugget Point Lighthouse
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Stayed up til midnite doing wifi related stuff, including downloading our favorite ipods which we have thoroughly enjoyed listening to at nite.