Three waterfalls, a Sound (that’s actually a Fjord)…and a flat battery

So after Dunedin we meandered down to the Catlins where we spent a glorious night parked up on a heavenly beach, followed by a day of exploring the area’s treasures. This is a simply stunning area on the South coast with incredible empty beaches, lined with thick forest. We spent the whole time down there following our noses and exploring tourist routes and footpaths, and we found some gems. Amongst others…Parakaunui Falls, Parakaunui beach and Makai Falls. 

From here we made the long drive towards Milford Sound. Milford Sound was phenomenal. When you get there you can choose from a selection of different trip providers. We of course picked ours because they gave you free fish and chips on board, and we’d convinced the sales person to throw in a free coffee. Result. The weather was pretty overcast, and even rainy on the way back but it was still an incredible spectacle, and the clouds made it quite eerie!

Mirror lakes

Seal rock

Brodie not quite getting the selfie!

Unfortunately our day took a turn for the worse when we returned to the van to find the battery was dead. Whilst rather annoying this was easily remedied by paying a guy from the café to jump start it, however the downside of this was that we then couldn’t stop for our much-needed petrol as we couldn’t turn the engine off, so had to cruise on fumes on a 7km detour down a little gravel track where we had to pay double the amount to an old local to fill up our van enough to get us back to civilisation. The up-side was that the 14km return detour led us to an incredible waterfall that just blew the other two out of the water! If it were in England people would flock for miles around to see it, but in New Zealand you have to make an unplanned detour down a forgotten track to reveal such a wonder. I bloody love NZ!