‘Nowhere better’ than the Catlins
Catlins-raised took a trip through the Catlins between Kaka Point and Fortrose. Today she makes the trip from Waikawa to Fortrose.
It’s still raining. It’s been raining on and off for three days but my trip through the Catlins has been beautiful just the same.
After leaving the Waikawa Museum, I head off to see Maurice Yorke.
He’s a farmer, and like many farmers in the Catlins, he doesn’t want to give it up.
After briefly retiring and selling his farm, he bought another.
Yorke has never really thought to hard on doing anything else, and throughout his career has become renowned for his interest in livestock and pastures.
In his house which looks out over the water, he reflected on why he had stayed in the Catlins.
‘‘One of the ancestors a long way back said it was poverty that sent us here and that poverty that kept us here,’’ he joked.
But in reality, the Catlins has been more than just somewhere he’s been stuck.
He’s built a life here and it will always be home.
‘‘I think one interesting thing about the Catlins is that we have travelled quite a lot and we’ve seen a lot of places as good, but nowhere better.’’
When the Catlins became a tourist destination, Yorke had a hard time understanding why.
Like many locals, it’s easy to forget the beaches, the penguins and dolphins are not typical everywhere.
‘‘When they started upping the Catlins as a tourist destination I couldn’t understand why people would want to come here.’’
But he’s since realised its appeal.
On that note, I head off to see if I can spot a dolphin.
There are two bays near Waikawa, side by side, one is a petrified forest, the other has golden sand and is home to the Hector’s dolphin. One is called Curio Bay, the other Porpoise Bay.
However, over the years they’ve both been referred to to Curio Bay.
Confusing for tourists, I imagine.
I spent 17 years living in the Catlins. My parents are still there and despite many visits to Porpoise Bay, I have never seen a dolphin.
I’m starting to think it’s a conspiracy.
There were none there today either.
I head around the coast to Slope Point, which due to lambing season was closed for access, as was the Tararua Acre Cemetery.
I find myself at the Waipapa Point Lighthouse, where my search for sea lions has finally paid off.
There are three playing in the water. I get soaked by rain as I try to take photos.
My final stop on this road trip is to my hometown – Fortrose.
Fortrose is the start or end of the Catlins depending on where your journey starts.
Mostly a town to drive through, there are hidden gems in the tiny town.
Up behind the golf course, are the Fortrose Cliffs, which overlook the estuary and the sea.
If you sit there for long enough you’ll see ships leaving Bluff and on a clear day Stewart Island is visible.
At low tide you can look back into the estuary and see the shipwreck Ino, which grounded in the harbour in 1886.
Before my journey was over, I headed to the Fortrose Cemetery.
Six soldiers from Fortrose died in the two world wars and a round obelisk stands in the memory of them.
Elsewhere in the cemetery, a headstone paid for by Fortrose School children commemorates those who died in the sinking of the S.S. Tararua in 1881.
But the real reason I visited was to go to the site of Louisa Welsh, nee Richardson, whose headstone caused quite a fuss for the morally headstrong township in the 19th century.
She was murdered by her husband in 1878.
He was later hung in Invercargill and believed to have murdered another wife in Australia.
But the local priest requested her headstone have ‘‘murdered by her husband’’ chiselled off, it’s still clear where the headstone has been chiselled.
Before I went on this trip, I thought I had been everywhere in the Catlins.
But as you look out on the ocean and feel the sea breeze on your face, you can truly appreciate your own backyard, even if it does rain a lot.