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Other entries in Papatowai

Southern Scenic Route #2

Much waterfallage today, not to mention a forest from the age of the dinosaurs. The area we drove through today is part of the Catlins, a beautiful area of southern New Zealand. We stopped at several different places along the way to check out some of the natural attractions. Our first stop was the most photographed waterfall in New Zealand, Purakaunui Falls, which are supposed to resemble a bridal veil -- I guess I can see a resemblance.
We also stopped at the Matai Falls, which were a little less impressive but still nice (and the walk there was highly scenic), and my (Cat's) favourite falls so far, the Niagara Falls. Ironically named after the real falls, these falls were more like a rock around which water moved at a fairly pokey speed. They were very cute.
In the evening we visited Curio Bay, a Jurassic-era petrified forest that would no doubt have turned Marc's and Mark's (our geologist friends) heads. The forest can only be viewed at low tide. It was pretty amazing -- you could actually see, and walk on, individual tree stumps and logs that were 180 million years old and made of stone. In some of the stumps you could even still read the age rings of the original tree.
On the way back to the car, we saw some yellow-eyed penguins. They're supposed to be the rarest kind of penguins, and little blue penguins are supposed to be the most common (in New Zealand, anyway), but we haven't yet seen any blues and we've seen lots of yellow-eyed. Weird.

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