The Cox Family New Zealand Adventures: The Catlins Coast... Curio Bay and Porpus Bay

Our next stop in the Catlins area was Curio Bay where they had a petrified forest. If you look closely, you can see straight lines in the ground. Some are laying on top of each other. These are trees laying down and the thick mud laid on top of them and petrified them over the years.

Savannah pointing to some petrified wood in the rock

You can see this one really close up. It is laying down next to Savannah.

A big tree trunk.

Petrified wood inside this rock mass.

An up above shot of the petrified forest. Look closer at all the lines.

This is almost like a "Where's Waldo".... Where's the penguin? We went back to the Petrified forest at nearly dusk to try and catch a glimpse of a penguin coming onto shore and up into it's nest for the night. There are 3 penguins that live on this beach and it was know that they come on shore around dusk. We hurried back form a different hike to try and catch them. Kayla, Alyssa and I ran down and we were able to catch this penguin for about 10 seconds before he disappeared into the brush. Ava, Savannah and Brady missed it because Savannah was insistent that she run back to the car for her ipod to take a picture so she could send it to her friend. I told her not to and that there was no way to zoom in that far on her ipod. The above pic is me zooming in all the way. There were lots of people standing around completely silent watching this penguin. We didn't stay long enough to see if the other two that live on this shore came in before dark. Savannah and Ava were so bummed to miss seeing this one. It was a yellow-eyed penguin.

After our first stop at Curio Bay we headed out to Porpus Bay. We got there just in time so see some dolphins (or more correctly, Porpuses) swimming close to the beach. Fun to see them in the wild. the girls were antsy to get there toes in the water.