Sadly, it was time for us to leave Te Anau. This quiet town has been wonderful and the Fiordlands are something special. But we have exciting things ahead! Our plan today was to drive to Brighton, a small beach town outside of Dunedin. Along the way, we would stop a Nugget Point. The drive would take about 4.5 hours.

We arrived to Nugget Point early in the afternoon. It was sprinkling a bit when we parked the car, but we threw on our rain gear and boots and started out on the short walk to the lighthouse. The “nuggets” of Nugget Point are the rocks in the water.

As we walked, we looked down the cliff and spotted three fur seals frolicking in a small pool along the rocky shore.

We continued our walk to the lighthouse, but Julie fell behind because she couldn’t tear herself away from the seals. (Later note: We didn’t know it at the time, but we’d be having an amazing seal encounter later in the trip.)

The nuggets actually were pretty cool. We could tell from the wave patterns that some had tunnels that ran through them. It would have been fun to climb down closer, but we’d probably die.

This was also the furthest south any of us have ever been in our lives – 46.4 degrees. That might not sound like much. It’s barely over halfway to the South Pole. But for comparison, the southernmost tip of Africa doesn’t even reach 35 degrees. Only South America extends further south.

On our walk back, a little rainbow peaked out over the light house.

We got back to the car and drove to another spot where yellow-eyed penguins can sometimes be spotted. Sadly, we didn’t see any. A sign said that the local population had dropped to a single breeding pair unfortunately.

As we drove away, the nearby rain gave us one more nice rainbow for the day.

We drove for another hour or so to our next New Zealand home, number 3 so far, a cute cottage on the beach overlooking the Southern Ocean.

Another fun day!

-Will