Description: The last spot on the Catlins Coast before we make way inland to Gore our next couch-surf is at Curio Bay. The 'curio' of the title is undoubtedly the petrified forest that fills the cove. In the mid-Jurassic period this area was covered in the woodland which apparently was repeatedly (over a period of thousands of years) covered with volcanic debris from nearby fiery mountains. This resulted in the creation of one of the most extensive and best preserved areas of fossilized forest, which now stretches from Curio Bay for several miles towards the Slope Point. The fossils are best seen at low tide, but even now, and even to our untrained eyes, the strange, brittle looking rock formations below the observation platform have an organic look, a bit like coals glowing in an open fire (and what is a coal than another kind of petrified Jurassic – or Carboniferous rather – forest).
It's living creatures though rather than the fossils that are a highlight of our visit as it's now dusk, the time for penguins to come back on land. There are several people already down on the stones below and a bloke on the platform confirms that there have been, indeed, sightings of the Yellow Eyed Penguins. We doubt it very much as there is a veritable audience now amassed of at least eight people, and Hoiho are supposed to be shy and easily scared, but we walk down, slowly, and keeping well back from where the birds are supposed to be (and the other people who are scurrying around with cameras).
Amazingly, a penguin appears, walking out from behind a bush in the typical penguiny waddle and straight to sea, where it meets another one – one can't help thinking that they are a male and a female getting the daily catch to feed the chicks hidden in a nest in the coastal bushes (or, as the Older Child excitedly says, the Mummy and Daddy penguins with the tea for the baby ones). Family or not, the penguins are quite active and don't seem to mind the people watching them (most keep prescribed distance), diving into the water, coming up on land and doing other interesting penguin things. I don't know what is the nature of attraction of penguins (the same one that spawned many a mawkish and dreadful movie from Happy Feet to March of the Penguins), but even if not antropomorphised they are still rather interesting to watch, and so we do until our hands and faces get very cold and stiff and we get into the car to warm up (and attempt to see the Slope Point while it's still some light left).
The turn-off to Slope Point is along another gravel road (this part of New Zealand is full of gravel roads, but they are well maintaned and our rental car is allowed on them as a matter of course, so all we are worrying about is flying chips on the windscreen), and the drive is scenic (as pretty much everything in this area), with more rolling countryside, dotted with wind-swept and wind-formed hedges and single trees, looking even more magical in the evening light.
Slope Point walk is closed, alas, because of lambing (the point is on private land, and the accursed sheep that seem to infest every corner of Southland rear their ugly heads again: as I said before, tourism is big in New Zealand, but sheep farming is much bigger). We don't mind that much, though, as there is not much of the day left, the field is muddy anyway and the wind is cold – and we have seen real-life penguins, after all!
Close