Field Notes: Fiordlands

We left Purakaunui Bay and continued on the Southern Scenic Route, west toward Fiordlands. On our way, we stopped at Curio Bay to see the underwater petrified forest and had the awesome penguin encounter we wrote about. We also had an interesting little adventure that involved helping push a massive camper van out of a ditch with about 10 other people.

This was the van!
(it was buried in rock halfway up the wheel-wells and the mid-section flat against the road edge)

It rained all day and we stopped for groceries and kebabs for dinner in the city of Invercargill. We happened to stop by the information center/museum in town and had the great luck of seeing the the tuataras being fed their dinner of squirmy grubs. Tuataras are an immensely ancient kind of lizard (branching off the lizard family 220 million years ago and evolving little since then) native to New Zealand that can live well over 100 years, can take over a minute to draw a breath, and move so little they usually look like they are carved out of stone. At feeding time, they really livened up, so we got to watch these little dinosaurs scurry about and munch on grubs before going back to their immobile state. Sorry we don't have a picture! We forgot the camera in the car, but check in out this link if you're interested:

http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/reptiles-and-frogs/tuatara/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara

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Lake outside of Te Anau

After a night camped west of Invercargill, we finally reached Fiordlands by lunchtime and started our way north toward Te Anau. The landscape was stunning between Te Anau and the middle section of the road to Milford where we camped. Enjoy!