Campsite Cats, Cannibal Bay & Cattle in the Catlins

Tuesday 24 June

More nomadic wandering in the eastern end of the Catlins - this time we went down the other roads we’d skipped on Monday... after a visit from Campsite Cat - Sage - of course. She seems very fond of our gin bar and there are paw marks on Banjo's side where she has contemplated trying to open the window and climb in!

First stop on our morning excursion was Cannibal Bay which was at the end of a long unsealed road and we were greeted with a goat skull in the fence which did feel a bit 007 1970s voodooish! Turns out the epithet is a bit of a misnomer - human remains were discovered here in the 1800s but no actual evidence of cannibalism. We momentarily considered putting in an offer for the doer-upper on the way into the bay, but decided against it.

The bay has a wide sweep of white gold sand, strewn with kelp, and often pakake (sea lions), but not while we were there. There was an enormous wooden tree monster - a huge root system which had washed in on the tide - which was pretty impressive.

At the south end of the bay we took the path over the dunes behind False Islet to Surat Bay (the one we never found our way to the day prior) and explored the beach and cliffs there - but again, no pakake (sea lions). Apparently there are many to be found along the fingers of the False Islet headlands, but there was no public access across this area so we did not get a chance to check.

The waves roaring into the bay with spumes of mist curling back like manes on galloping horses were quite glorious to watch, but there was also devil in the small details of the rock erosions along the eastern end of the bay. The strata went in all directions, pushed upwards over the millennia by powerful tectonic movement, and the curious circular indentations were fascinating. As at Orepuki, Monkey Island, there were visible seams of small pebble size gem stones crushed in along the rock strata and the beach had patches of semi precious gemstones washed into sheltered nooks in the cliff & rock pools.

The seaweeds again were a curious array of different types - huge fleshy bull kelps offset by delicate fronds of flapjack seaweed and the golden grapelike smaller kelps.

Heading along the coast to our next port of call, we passed some adorably fluffy black bullocks, many fields scattered with merino sheep and one field where the poor sheep were jammed in together and were fascinated when we stopped to say hello to them and take a few pics!

Onwards to Jack’s Bay which was very popular with tarāpunga (red billed gulls) - I had a short wander but Louis’ sciatica was playing up so we left the walk round to Jack’s Blowhole for another day.

Crossing the Catlin lake at HinaHina we spotted a new cycle track by the bridge - we will be back to check that out in a slightly warmer season.

Back at camp we had a leftovers lunch in the sun by the amenities block and were bombed occasionally by piwakawaka!

After a siesta Louis did some music and I took another stroll to the beach at Kaka Point, met a few locals and caught the last of the light. I chatted to a local guy and his daughter who told me to check out the bush walks as well as the bay as they were full of birds, tui, piwakawaka, korimako bell birds, kereru etc but decided to leave that for another day. Along the beach I met Skye, the most adorable Schnau-Wester puppy - loved the dog, loved the punning name! And came across a chunk of kelp that had been wrenched from the rocks with such force that a chunk of the rock came too - imagine the force of the water that could do that!

Dinner in the camp kitchen again - defrosted some Harris Farms burgers which were cheap as chips and absolutely delicious!