falls galore

Ann and I made our rounds to three waterfalls today – Purakaunui, Maitai and Horseshoe, all of which were beautiful but we were done after those three. As we were eating our leftover taco lunch near the entrance to Matai Falls, we brainstormed ideas for the next destination and decided to try to make it to Stewart Island instead of spending another day in the Catlins or heading straight for Queenstown/Wanaka. Stewart Island’s a place I really wanted to get to before leaving the country, so this will save me from coming all the way back down to the ‘South South Island’ once I’ve moved on to the north.

We drove straight to the ferry terminal in Bluff, passing the huge aluminum smelter on the way and bypassing Invercargill this time around. When we arrived in Bluff it was a lot smaller than expected and no one was around to give us information on how to get to Stewart Island but we found the ferry terminal and Ann booked our tickets while I called around to see if we could get hostel space or a camp site on the island. No luck with a room, but we got a tent site at the only hostel there. We did a super-fast packing job, sticking the tent and camp stuff in Ann’s magic army-surplus parachute bag and everything else in our little backpacks so we could have arm space for the cooler too. We were out of breath from packing and running to the ferry, so the hour-long trip was a nice relaxing break.

At the hostel, Ann set up camp while I started on dinner. There was a big school group there and a fisherman had given them a huge crayfish (rock lobster) to look at/play with – it looked delicious but they were intent on freeing it!