Curio Bay,New Zealand.

Sunrise at Curio Bay

We stayed at a great hostel in Curio Bay. The above sunrise was the view from the couch I slept on. There was also a stove which we eventually got started. All we had was damp timber. Not fun. There was also a gorgeous little cat called Lily. She decided that my pillow would make her a comfy bed at about 3am! She craved human attention.

Curio Bay is right down on the South East corner of the South Island, in an area called the Catlins. Its quite a rugged coast line. We wanted to visit this particular bay because we had read about the petrified forest you could walk around at low tide. We weren't disappointed.

Curio Bay at low tide.

It didn't look at all that spectacular when we first arrived, but it wasn't until we started looking closer that it got rather interesting. According to the Lonely Planet, this area used to be a Forest in the Jurassic age. Over time the forest, which was covered over by something or other, had eventually turned to rock.

A tree stump turned to rock!

You can just see the little log

This log is a little more obvious

You could count the rings on this one! I couldn't believe it was all rock!

This one looks a little squashed!



We continued on our journey to Milford Sound. This was near Riverton. You can see Stewart Island to the south.

Sheep! More fields like this and I could start believing there are 40 million sheep in NZ