Finally we started a day with the promise of good weather and by and large the weather kept up its end of the bargain today.
Our first stop today was the Florence Hill Lookout which takes in the vistas of Tautuku beach and Chaslands Mistake.

Tautuku Beach

Next stop was the Tautuku boardwalk which was a simple, easy and enjoyable start to the day.

Our third stop was the walk to McLean Falls. These waterfalls were very impressive and we even managed to get a complete family photograph which is somewhat of a miracle at the moment! I would probably rate these water falls as more impressive than the Purakaunui Falls the day before.

The boys had behaved well for the morning activities and as luck would have it there is a cafe (The Whistling Frog) at the turnoff to Mclean Falls so icecream, hot chips, hot chocolate and coffee were in order.

After the midday refreshments we headed to Porpoise Bay and Curio Bay where the boys were going to try out their new body boards. Jolie even had a full length wet suit she was borrowing (thanks Gwen) so got in on the body-boarding action too!! I’m pretty sure Jolie and I enjoyed the surf way more than the boys.

We must have stayed at on the beach for a fair while before we made the move just around the corner to check out the petrified forest. We were lucky with our timings as the tides were low enough to see the fossilised trees.

Petrified forest

We left Curio/Porpoise bay and headed back to Papatowai. Once back at our accommodation Andrew took the boys down to the local estuary/rock pools for a bit of an explore before dinner. The boys found a carpet shark up on the rocks and it still seemed to have a small bit of life in it so they put it back in the water.

After dinner everybody came back down to the estuary for a spot of fishing. By shear fluke I’m sure, we hooked up a flounder on about the third cast much to the boys delight. We let it go again.

Great cast!

Checking out the flounder

Many crabs were caught in the estuary too with both the older boys mastering how to pick them up without getting nipped. We also had two seals swim out past us as we were fishing.

Beautiful evening

We then headed for the rock pools to try some more fishing but didn’t have any luck. Ryan however, had the find of the day when he found an octopus in a rock pool.

Great day to end our Catlins holiday. Looking forward to getting back down there again!