Catlins (1 day)

The next morning we headed towards Catlins after having to pick up our food from the reception because we had forgotten to label our food in the fridge, oops. On the way, we had to refuel and stopped at a viewpoint and Monkey Island, but unfortunately, it was cloudy. We drove through Invercargill, luckily there were a few more people there. And just like that, we were already in the Catlins region. A region in New Zealand that is not yet of great tourist interest, but definitely has something to offer, in our opinion. We made our first stop in this region at Waitawa Point, a lighthouse from 1884. At the beach, we were actually lucky enough to observe sea lions. The next stop was at Slope Point, the southernmost point of New Zealand, it took us just under 20 minutes to walk there. We also stopped at Curio Bay and visited a petrified forest. Then we came across a sign for Waikawa, where we had already booked accommodation, or so we thought, until we realized that our accommodation in this town doesn't exist. We had actually booked accommodation in another Waikawa, which was unfortunately 700km away from us, so we decided to find another place to stay and found one at our next stop, McLean Falls. So we leisurely walked to the waterfall and cooked noodles for dinner. The next morning, we visited the Cathedral Caves (coastal caves), Florence Hill (viewpoint), Purakaunui Falls (waterfall), Jack's Blowhole (55m deep hole), and Nugget Point (lighthouse), all highlights of the Catlins region, before arriving in Dunedin in the evening.