Purakaunui Falls

The torrential rain in Dunedin continued all night and was still going by the time we had to check out of the campsite at 10am. (However, judging by the news, we got off much more lightly than some parts of New Zealand further north so we consider ourselves lucky!). The sensible thing seemed to be to head further south where the weather reports were better, so we set off and drove to Invercargill: this was accompanied by a considerable improvement in the weather.

We took the scenic route through the area known as The Catlins: our blip friends had all recommended us to visit this area. As it was still pretty rainy we only stopped at one sight, the Purakaunui Falls shown in the photo. If they seem familiar, it's because they're apparently one of the most photographed falls in NZ, appearing on many postcards, calendars and book covers. They're certainly very pretty.

Depending on the weather tomorrow, we may backtrack to The Catlins for a while before moving further on. We'll see.

Invercargill's an interesting place, with a lot of old(ish) buildings in a variety of architectural styles although sadly many of them appear in need of some love and care. It also has a superb aviary; however today's blip extra is a New Zealand Fantail which we saw wild in the  park (it wasn't easy to photograph as it didn't stay still for long!).