The Catlins: Part 2
Continuing eastward, from Waikawa to Pūrākaunui Bay
This post is the second of three describing an eastbound road trip through the Catlins. It follows last week’s post, ‘The Catlins: New Zealand’s wild, rocky, southern shore’.
Waikawa
Here is a map of the Catlins that I saw on the side of the local museum at Waikawa. It shows the inland rainforest parks with their spectacular waterfalls, as well as the better-known coastal areas. You can download a PDF from catlins.org.nz.
And here’s the museum from the outside. It also serves as the local information centre.
Next to the noticeboard, the porch bore a plaque headed “WAIKAWA MUSEUM” which began as follows: “The first people to live at Waikawa were southern Māori of the Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe and Waitaha tribes, who are known collectively as Ngāi Tahu Whānui.”
It went on to say that the museum held displays on whaling, sawmilling and goldmining, and that it was in the buildings of the Waikawa School, which operated from 1912 to 1972.
The next sign describes the Waikawa River Nohoanga Site, meaning a seasonal campsite of the South Island Māori, who were forced by harsher environmental conditions into a somewhat more semi-nomadic, or mobile, lifestyle than the North Island Māori.
McLean Falls
After Waikawa, I visited the McLean Falls, on the Tautuku River, southwest of Papatōwai. To get there, you turn up a short side road from the main highway — a side road called Rewcastle Road — and then, from a carpark 3 km up the road, you walk for 20 minutes to the falls.
There are some tramping tracks in the area, including one that leads to Tautuku Hut, a pleasant little getaway, lately renovated with a deck and a new toilet, in a place known as Sandys Clearing: perfect for reading a book by all accounts. “Include the opportunity to visit the magnificent McLean Falls and the trip quickly becomes an irresistible overnight proposition in the Catlins,” states an article in New Zealand’s Wilderness magazine.
Here is a bridge on the way to the falls: it gives you an idea of what the track is like.
And the falls themselves.
Along the same stretch of highway, it is also worth paying a visit to the Cathedral Caves with their 30-metre-high roofs, so called because they resembled European cathedrals.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the Cathedral Caves, because they were closed for the season and would not re-open until the end of October. Access to these caves, which are sea-caves, is governed by the tides in any case.
Chaslands Mistake and Tautuku Beach
With a great many bays and points, it was easy for sailors making for Dunedin or other ports to run ashore, as the captains of both the Surat and the Otago did at Chaslands Mistake, a headland also known as Makati, close to the main-road locality of Chaslands, and one beach south of Tautuku Beach and Tautuku Peninsula.
Ironically enough, the ‘Mistake’ wasn’t named after any error of navigation on the part of the masters of either the Surat or the Otago, but after a whaler and seal-hunter and local identity from two hundred years ago named Thomas Chaseland — with an ‘e’, though it is missing from local placenames — who made the ‘mistake’ of not killing a herd of seals he came across at the end of a long day in the belief that they’d still be there in the morning. (They weren’t.)
The best view of Tautuku Beach is obtained from Florence Hill Lookout. In the next two photos, from Florence Hill, you can see Tautuku Beach, with the Tautuku Peninsula behind. One of them also shows a sign pointing to the Spouting Cave, another local attraction.
The secluded, mirror-like Lake Wilkie lies just behind Tautuku Beach.
Also behind Tautuku Beach, a little to the southwest and on the inland side of the main highway, is the Lenz Reserve, which belongs to the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc., a venerable charity known as Forest & Bird for short. The reserve is full of rare creatures such as forest geckos. The Lenz Reserve includes a short Nature Walk and a longer loop track, plus the Tautuku Lodge.
Papatōwai
This is another lovely coastal area, immediately north of Florence Hill, where there are many walks and more mirror-like waters — which do seem to be a Catlins thing.
I visited the artist Blair Somerville’s amazing Lost Gypsy Gallery, which he founded at Papatōwai in 1999.
As always in this wild area, there are seals on the beach. They treat the beach as a place to have a snooze and, in New Zealand at least, generally won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother them.
Inland, on the forested side, there is a coastal walk. One time, when I was there, I fell into peat. Thank goodness it was summer and not raining, as I certainly would have been worse off in wet weather. Even then, I was up to my neck in peat. Somehow, I made it out and then headed to the coast following a rarely used track, where I cleaned all my clothes in the ocean and made it back to the car.
Aside from the dangerous peat and beautiful views of the coastline, old Māori middens can also be seen along this track. These middens, a word meaning camp remains, can generally be identified by the presence of vast numbers of seashells, in much the same way that later European encampments could be identified by the presence of vast numbers of bottles.
Irahuka (Long Point)
This was an amazing area which reminded me of the Orkneys. It is a wildlife reserve for hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins), purchased by another NGO, the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust, in 2009. No dogs are allowed. Nor camping.
I thought it was endlessly photogenic, in a wild and stormy way.
This view really reminded me of the Scottish Isles.
I came across a crib (the local term for bach or holiday home), which I mistook for a scientific base at first. You can just see it in the next photo. I imagine it dates back to the days before the site was purchased by the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust.
For some reason, the crib had several bathtubs. Perhaps they were replaced as they went rusty, which wouldn’t have taken very long in this environment.
Here are some more photos, looking around from the crib site. The light changed every five minutes.
Pūrākaunui Bay
Finally, on this leg, I came to remote Pūrākaunui Bay, at the end of a one-way road, where there are cliffs and sea lions and massive washed-up tangles of kelp.
The next two photos look at the left-hand side of the bay and the right-hand side, as seen from behind. The brown tent in each image is the same one.
It is also worth visiting Pūrākaunui Falls, somewhat inland from the Bay. These are about the same size as the McLean Falls, but wider, and just as attractive.
My next post will be about New York, as that is where I am right now (8 March 2024). On the 22nd of March, I will publish part 3 of this series, which finishes in Balclutha.
If you liked this post, check out my book about the South Island! It’s available for purchase from my website, a-maverick.com.
