Catlins Coastal Heritage Trail

Got away early while it was still calm and sunny to explore this wild, beautiful coastline and learn a bit about the history of this place. Coincidentally our first stop was at a village called Fortrose, named so because of a Scottish drover who claimed it was similar to Fortrose in Scotland. We watched sea lions wrestling with each other at Waipapa Point, where a wooden lighthouse was built after NZ's worst maritime disaster when 131 people died after a ship sank in 1881. Children from the local school raised enough mobey to buy a headstone for the mass grave that they were buried in. Having been to the most northern point of the South Island we visited the southernmost point of mainland NZ, called Slope Point. We were nearer to the South Pole than the Equator. That may be why we were then greeted with howling winds and pouring rain for our visit to Curio Bay! Careful planning so we were there at low tide meant we could see one of the world's finest fossil forests. Petrified stumps, fallen trees and fern imprints from the Jurassic period are 180 million years old. We saw more Hector dolphins (they are meant to be rare) at Porpoise Bay before deciding to get out of the storm and back to the shelter of our secret garden again. Even the seagulls found shelter behind seaweed and the trees grow at funny angles.Read more