Pukakaunui Bay, NZ
Tuesday, March 17
Our day started in a free camping spot on the beach in Fortrose, New Zealand. As has become our routine, Andi walked to the little info centre / cafe across from the car park to get a coffee while Tory, Aden and I stayed back in the RV, ate breakfast and did school.
There isn’t a lot of personal space in the RV, so we all need to sneak away for a few minutes of alone time when we can. I snapped this pic of Tory and Andi last night trying to navigate the bottleneck between our RV bathroom and kitchen. This puts a whole new spin on the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Mid-morning, we packed up the RV and drove toward Curio Bay to see a 180 million year old petrified forest. This is a popular spot when visiting New Zealand’s Catlins region, and for good reason. Millions of years ago the Curio Bay area was connected to the supercontinent Gondwanaland. The forest was destroyed multiple times by floods of volcanic ash carrying silica which turned the forest into stone. Exposed tree stumps, logs and other fossils can be seen there today.
Upon first sight of the petrified forest, the four of us had a hard time visualizing exactly what we were seeing. I expected to see solid trees or a better resemblance of a typical forest around us. It took Tory and Aden a few minutes to realize the “stones” they were climbing on were once trees & upon closer examination, we could see bark fossilized into the rocks. Lightbulb learning moment! This was what was left of the forest. Pretty cool that we could actually stand on it and view it up close.
This area is also home to yellow-eyed penguins, the smallest and rarest of its species. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any penguins during our visit. We’ve come to learn that penguins go out hunting during the daytime and return to their nests at night. It was mid-morning when we visited.
Andi and I opted to stay away from the Curioscape Museum inside the visitor’s center and instead go for a walk in the living forest across the road. It’s unfortunate that we now need to keep a reasonable distance from others, but I’m thankful we can still get out and enjoy nature by ourselves. This was a really pretty 20-minute walk through the dense rimu forest.
Next, we drove 40 minutes along the southern coast to another popular hike at Cathedral Caves. This caves can only be accessed one-hour on either side of low tide, so timing is everything to see one of the world’s longest sea caves. Getting there proved to be more of a challenge than the actual walk — none of the reviews mentioned the steep one-lane drive up a muddy hillside. Immediately, we met another car coming down the road and Andi had to reverse our RV out to let the car pass. I don’t know how he did it! Definitely some next-level RV driving.
Once we reached the entrance of the Cathedral Cave hike, it was all good. We parked and walked down the hillside along a nice path for about 15 minutes before coming to Waipati Beach. From there, it was another 10 minute walk to the caves. We arrived at exactly low tide and were able to access the whole cave without getting wet. Well … Aden was wet by the end, but that was his choice.
The tide came up quickly and began to fill the cave with seawater. Time to head back up the hill! Andi promised Tory and Aden each a butterscotch candy if they made it all the way up the steep hill without complaining. They succeeded, and then we were on our way again to find a campsite for the night.
On our way, we stopped at a lookout to view the beach from above. It was a beautiful and exotic — easy to see why part of The Chronicles of Narnia was filmed there.
Andi and I decided to stay at a DOC campsite in nearby Pukakaunui Bay. DOC campgrounds are basically New Zealand’s version of a state park. The campground was simple, but quiet and pretty. We found a patch of green grass to park our RV for the night and called it good enough.
Tomorrow, we’re planning to explore one of The Catlins most visited sites — Nugget Point. Excited to see it.
