Day 95 Te Anau, Totara Forest, Invercargill

It rained hard all night so we were surprised when we woke up to a sunny day. Pleasantly surprised I might add.  We left Te Anau by turning on to Hwy 95 which was the start of the Southern Scenic Route.  It goes from Te Anau right around the tip of Southland up to Dunedin. 

We didn't stop for the first picture until we were south of Manapouri as we were here earlier in the trip.  Manapouri is where we started the first stage of the Doubtful Sound Cruise.  The terrain for the most part was farmland with mountains on both sides of us.  We followed the Waiau River all the way to where it fed into the Tasman Sea.

Our first stop was in Clifton which is home to the longest spanning suspension bridge in New Zealand. It is 366 feet long and is quite an achievement considering it was built in the late 1890's and actually opened on April 5, 1899.  It remained in use until 1978.



Clifton Bridge

One area we did want to see was the Dean Forest where there are 1000 year old Totara Trees.  We had to detour 23 miles off the main road, most of it gravel to get to "The Big Totara Walk"  We were able to take a 30 minute stroll through the forest which is home to quite a few of the big Totara Trees. 



New Zealand Robin




New Zealand Robin



It was long after getting back on the Southern Scenic Route from Dean Forest that we ran into the Tasman Sea.  Our first stop was at McCracken's Rest which gave us a great view of Te Waewae Bay. 

Beach at McCracken's Rest

Beach at McCracken's Rest

I don't what I was expecting but I know I wasn't expecting the number of beautiful expansive beaches along the southern coast of Southland.  We stopped at a few of them and they were all the same, beautiful and quite large. Another good feature was that most of them were safe for swimming.  We even stopped at Gemstone Beach and hunted for gemstones.  Since we had no idea what we were looking for I am thinking that all we ended up with was a bunch of pretty rocks.  It was a nice walk though.



Gemstone Beach



Colac Beach







Monkey Island Beach




Pied Oyster Catcher



Colac Beach is well known for its surf.



Statue of Surfer at entrance to Colac Beach



You can see why surfing would be good here or why any wind sport would be good.  They do get a bit of wind.



Wind Blown Trees



There were a couple of other interesting places we stopped on our way to Invercargill where we are planning to stay for the night.  It really is a beautiful place in the summer. The winter time would be a different story, with nothing between here and the South Pole, I imagine it would be very windy and cold.



Mullet Bay



Monkey Island