It wasn’t till the other day that I realised that the sign at Bluff was not the furthest south that you could go in Southern New Zealand. We had been to the Southern Catlins before but drove past the slope point sign, disregarding it due to the what is now familiar gravel road.
Today we decided to go to the Niagra Falls cafe for lunch, the go for a drive / walk and locate Slope point on the way.
This is the cafe that we went in when I returned from England in July, and found the owners daughter had won Gold, silver and Bronze in London at the Paralympics, and I got to hold them!
We drove back through the Southern coast road, this time turning at the Slope point sign. It is famous here for being really windy, as you can see by the shape of the trees! I googled the position of my home town in England in relation to the North Pole and the Equator. It is 5800km from the Equator and 4200km from the North Pole. Have a look at the sign and see how that compares: 5140km to the Equator and 4803km to the South Pole.
The coast line here looks like a mixture of volcanic rock and sandstone looking rock. It is not hard to work out which rock is the hardest wearing and is lasting best against the battering of the sea!
Waipapa point is on route too, we have been before, and this photo of the seals was the last time we visited. Not so lucky this time. The sea was fierce today, some great huge waves, and even a poor one legged bird!
Melanie Magowan 