Time-out in the Catlins
Source: Stuff.co.nz (Original Article)
MIKE CREAN/The Press
FIELDS OF GREEN: One of the many abandoned farmhouses around Katea, near Owaka, in the Catlins - the area is growing in popularity.
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The Catlins is one of New Zealand's most beautiful but remote areas, the rugged region at the bottom right-hand corner of the South Island, near a coast of big surf and shipwrecks.
Jessie Coote milked cows by hand as a child. Her stool was a tomato box, her pail a honey tin. It was in the Depression. It was in the Catlins. All five children helped with milking while their dad cleared bush on the 50-hectare block.
"They were tough times, but happy times," she says. "Everyone strived on very little. Everyone supported everyone else. Old friends were never forgotten."
Only in the past three years was the sealing of the Catlins highway, from Balclutha to Invercargill, completed. Now the area is growing in popularity. But when people tell me they have "done" the Catlins, I shudder. Many just drive the highway, about a two-hour trip. They miss most of what the area has to offer.
You could live in the Catlins for years and still discover things about it. Better to stay a few days and visit interesting features: from waterfall bush walks to seaside rock formations.
The ideal starting point is the Owaka Information Centre and Museum. I know of no town of similar size with a better museum and more helpful staff. With fewer than 400 people, Owaka is the Catlins' main settlement. It offers all necessary services and accommodation, half an hour south of Balclutha.
My first excursion through the Catlins, in 1971, was an adventure. The road was gravelled all the way and our Mini juddered in corrugations, slewed in shingle and grunted on the hills. We made the round trip from home in Mataura in little less than nine hours.
The call of the wild, ANZ Frequent Flyer the grandeur, solitude and rugged beauty, …continue reading