We reached the south coast at Riverton and having decided that we deserved a decent lunch we followed a recommendation in the Lonely Planet guide and sought out the Beach restaurant which was on a cliff overlooking a beautiful bay and surfing beach. A number of the young locals were braving the surf for the, possibly traditional, New Year's Day surf (but in wet suits). The lunch was excellent. We had seafood chowder (for him) and a pork belly and cabbage salad (for the lady wife), plus a lovely vanilla bean pannacotta. Pannacotta seems to be on most menus - they have to do something with all that milk and cream the cows produce. It was a really cheerful little restaurant and very busy despite being in the middle of almost nowhere.
Onward we headed to Invercargill which is not an impressive town. After refuelling the van and our fridge we decide to carry on towards the Catlins National Park. There was some beautiful coastline scenery along the way and we arrived late afternoon at Purpoise Bay/Curio Bay where we had decided to spend the night. The campsite was one of the less sophisticated we have come across and camper vans have their own individual spaces surrounded by large clumps of cordyline (the New Zealand flax). This proved to be a great choice because as we walked along the wind and rain swept beach at Purpoise Bay we saw a large pod of Hcctor's dolphins, the smallest and one of the rarest
dolphins in the world.
It was a wonderful sight and so close to the beach.
Later we walked along to Curio Bay where we had been told there were some yellow eyed penguins which apparently are the rarest penguins in the world. We were very lucky and out of 7 breeding pairs we saw 5 penguins on the beach (their mates stay in the burrow looking after the chicks whilst one bird goes fishing all day).
We went to sleep to the sound of heavy rain!!
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