Close encounters

What an afternoon. I don't think we've ever been so drenched in all our lives! Our wildlife tour was booked for 1:30pm so with the morning available we headed to Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi to plan the next steps of our trip. We are heading into the Catlins next, one step down the island which includes New Zealand's most southerly point on the south island. We spent a good few hours here sharing drinks and researching places to go and things to see. Nick made a members of staff's day at one point when he made a gruesome discovery on the toilet floor which she had to spend about half an hour with tissue up her nose clearing up. You could smell it from across the shop so we felt incredibly sorry for her. With our plan sorted we headed to our campsite for the night and plugged into the power straight away before getting ready to go. The bus was a little late but soon we were on our way out to the albatross centre, an optional extra. We chose not to do this tour and we are glad we didn't because they were only in there for half an hour and from the outside we saw the birds flying anyway and the free exhibition inside was very interesting to read in itself. Once we were reunited we drove to private farm land which only the farmers and our tour company have access to. On route many species of birds were pointed out to us and extensive information about them was given so the 40 minute journey went quickly. The company uses the money from tours to do conservation work for the animals that have made this area of coastline their home. This includes planting lots of native New Zealand plant life providing a safe place for the world's rarest penguins to nest, the yellow eyed penguins. When we arrived the heavens had really opened and being on an exposed hilltop we were soaked almost instantly. We split into two groups, one of Chinese and then everyone else. Our group went to the fur seal lookout first which was a battle to climb down to in the wind and rain. Luckily we entered a hut where we could look down and see the animals on the rocks below. It was amazing to see and we spent time learning about the animals while watching them play and interact with each other. We soon had to brace the weather again to head back up towards the bus and down the other side of the hill to the beach. Here we passed about 6 of the Chinese people sitting back on the bus. Turns out they got half way down and came back because of the weather so they've all spent over a hundred dollars and seen no animals! Down the other side we entered this planted conservation area and were lucky enough to see who yellow eyed penguins really close to us on the path. Our guide said it's the closest they've been to the path in months. This is because the penguins are use to the tours and the guides respect them so if a penguin is on the path the group will go around them on a different route but unfortunately they had surfers trespassing to the beach and since then they've stopped coming near the path. Down on the beach we were metres away from huge sea lions which was both brilliant and incredibly nerve wracking. It was entertaining to learn that the large males basically claim the smaller males as their boyfriends and fight any other male who tries to take him away, this behaviour is them practising for when the females return and they'll have to fight the other males for them. Therefore the large males puffed out their necks and stared directly at us almost challenging us to try and take his boyfriend away. Nick now does the best sea lion impression! We also saw penguins coming into the beach for the night and climbing back up to their nests high on the hill tops. By the time we were back on the bus there wasn't a part of us or an item of clothing that wasn't soaked. Back at the campsite everything went straight in the wash and dryer and we both had the best warmest showers I think we will ever have. It was such a fantastic experience but so unbelievably cold and wet at the same time.Read more