As we are traveling in South island of New Zealand, we are heading further south as our journey takes us to Antartica. We crossed the 45 degree south latitude yesterday, that means we are at the bottom 1/4 of the earth and are now part of less than .01% of earth population for a brief period of 50 odd days.
We stayed in Te Anau, which falls in region of Fiordland National Park. We took it easy today after the early mornings for the last few days. Today was also rainy and overall we were able to do a lot less number of activities.
We visited Lake Manapouri. This is considered by many as New Zealand’s loveliest lake with beautiful mountain range as a backdrop and many small islands. Unfortunately, the views were limiting today with rain and cloud cover.
We met some locals while visiting the lake and they suggested that we visit Caitlin forest park especially Curio Bay and Petrified Forest. So we decided to do just that (very spontaneous of us 😊).
On the way we crossed the Red tussock conservation area. This has the red grass and it looked lovely with mountainous background.
From there it was, or felt like a long drive to Curio Bay. There was not much in between but many sheep farms. Though they looked pretty, the drive felt monotonous after the variety we experienced over the last week. We are already spoiled 😁.
The petrified forest is at the seashore and can only be seen during low tide. We planned our visit accordingly and the forest floor was exposed and we were able to walk through petrified stumps and some fallen petrified tree trunks. It did need some imagination to notice the petrified wood.
From there we decided to visit the southernmost tip of New Zealand called slope point. By the time we got there it was raining a bit and was very windy with gusts up to 36-40 mph.
The rain stung, and the wind bit, but we still made the mile long walk to the slope point. It was insane.
But that was not sufficient for Mayuresh and he decided walk to another point would do the trick and off he went to the Waipapa point to see a lighthouse.
After this, we were definitely done and are now sitting in our hotel’s restaurant waiting for our meal.
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