What a day!

Salamander
Fri 10 Dec 2010 09:22
Another of the 101 Kiwi Must Do's:
Basically you drive down the Southern Scenic Highway and choose your stop offs from the many wildlife beaches, waterfalls, caves etc. There are many many choices and we limited ourselves to four.
 
Our first stop was for scenery and cliff top views of a very rare rock ledge where sea lions, elephant seals and fur seals jostle for space. The eerie noises from the ledge were incredible and the views, yet again, breathtaking.
 
 
Our choice of cave was the renowned Cathedral Cave. By this time we had picked up two French backpackers who were going to Invercargill to catch the Stewart Island ferry and did all of the stops with us.
 
 
 
Next up the waterfall choice - apparently the second prettiest according to our guide book.
 
 
 
A stunning end to our day on a yellow eyed penguin beach. This beach does not tag or interfere with the penguins and they all seem healthy and ignore the people on the beach - on other beaches they are described as very shy and will stay in the water to avoid people. At one point the penguin stopped and waited until we realised we were in the way, moved and the penguin continued to its nest. These are the rarest penguins in the world - we still haven't seen any possums.
 
 
 
 
You could spend all day on stop offs. A perfect day was rounded off with yet another pizza. Caroline spotted their fridge magnets display and as the staff didn't know the price, they gave us one gratis!
Wildlife, pizza and freebies, could life get any better? (Yes we do have a glass of wine in hand!)