NZ South Island Motorhome Road trip 2018 Day 11

There is a Curio Bay Cliffs and Porpoise Bay just at the top of the campground, so we detour total a look. Hectors dolphins are supposed frequent visitors to the Porpoise Bay but was too windy with many waves this morning so cannot see anything.
We decided to make a detour back to slope point because yesterday was raining so won't have good pictures even if we went there, it was about 20 min drive back from Curio bay. Slope point is the most southernmost point you can get to on mainland New Zealand , but southeast point is actually in Steward Island ( but that you have to take a ferry there ) Do note that the access to Slope point is on private land and it's closed during the lambing season from 1st September to 1st November.
After Slope point we decided to take one the Waipohatu falls hike which is supposed to be a 3 hour loop hike. there are 2 waterfalls to be seen in this hike. The pictures above were taken at the lower fall - Punehu Falls. It was a bad choice to do this hike as the past few days had been raining , so the whole walk inside the forest gets very muddy. We did not see any living soul during our 3 hours + hike. See the last picture ? does it look like a huge Chameleon ??
These 2 were taken at the upper fall - Pouriwai Falls. It was very disappointing cos from the pictures online we saw was taken from the other side of the falls , but the track only bring you to this side , in order to take nicer pictures , you will need to climb those rocks over to the other side but cos it was too slippery, we gave up and just take a quick look and left. really not worth the 3 hours + hike , maybe you can consider to do it in the dryer season. Online picture looks like this here.

Home Sweet Home

All covered in Mud

I survived

We end up all the shoes and pants in mud and also super hungry. Did not expect to be so muddy inside and there isn't really any place where you can sit to have a break inside this trek.
After a quick late lunch , we moved on to McLean Falls, This is a much easier walk ( except for some stairs ) once you reach the lower falls , move on up the steep stone stairs to the upper falls else you will regret as the upper falls is so much nicer. There is a toilet and sink at the entrance which is surprisingly quite clean , not like what you will expect in places like this ( if you are in some country ).

Lake Wilkie

It was about 4-5 pm when we left and so we have to decide where to go next. We did not exactly plan where to go these few days but rather just go and decide on the road. We were deciding between Purakaunui Falls or Lake Wilkie which are both along the way. We actually hope to reach Nugget point before sunset so we are kinda of rushing along the way ( all thanks to the 3 hours + hike in the morning). Lake Wilkie supposed to be like a mirror lake where you can see the reflection of the landscape but as we reached there it's already evening , the sun is actually on the wrong side , so if you place to visit, best to come in the morning or afternoon.

Came across some dogs herding the cows across the road when we were rushing to Nugget Point. Apparently we only go to the Light house but there is actually a place where you can view the Yellow-eyed penguins called Roaring Bay Penguins & Seals Observatory.Would loved to explore here more if we had time.I think it would be best to come here in the afternoon to have a better view of this place.
Pictures are bit blur cos it's already dark and I need to use flash to capture some of the pictures. It's called Nugget Point because of those rocks in the sea that looks like gold nuggets. We decided to stay till night fall and take some night sky pictures before moving off to next location for the night cos no freedom camping is allowed here. From the carpark to the lighthouse will take you about 15 mins.
By the time we finished and left the place it was already 8pm. We decided to stay at Brighton Domain for the night , which is about 1 hr 30 min drive away from Nugget Point Lighthouse. But before that , we did a detour to Ocean View Recreational Reserve Brighton for the dump station to clear our waste and also top up clean water. It's also a freedom camping site but I thin the rule is need to leave by 8:30 am , also there are specific lots to park in. When we finally reach and settle for the night , it's almost 10 pm. There is a toilet at the entrance but it's closed during the night but there is another one nearby about 1-2 min drive at the Surf club which is open but without lights. All these informations you can find at Campmate.

NZ South Island Motorhome Road trip 2018 Day 9

Gloomy morning

Park right just the edge to the lake

Cloudy day

Was a cloudy and drizzling morning , would have go down to the lake if the weather was better ( quite windy and cold ) . Booked my skydive for 12:30 pm so decided to drive up to Glenorchy to take a look at the town. Was a bit worried cos forecast today was that it will rain and whole morning was very cloudy. Another thing was WEIGHT issue, there is a weight limit for tandem skydive and I am at that borderline so i still need to be assess by the tandem master when I am at the drop zone.
Glenorchy - a very quite and beautiful town by the lake. It was still cloudy when we were there but the sun seems to be coming out and the sky looks about to clear. We did not stop long as we still need to drive back to Queenstown for my skydive.
When we reach NZONE, we were told we can either drive there or take their shuttle bus. We opt to drive there as I am the only one doing it and also do not want to waste time to wait for the shuttle. My dive was supposed to be 12:30 pm , I reported earlier then that but was asked to wait for the tandem master to assess me. But apparently they did not follow up on that , ends up I waited for quite some time before they get back to me after asking them for a few time. From batch 9 i think i waited until batch 12 before i jumped. Also as the sky is very cloudy , they are not ablate make it to the 15,000ft for our jump , ends up we only jumped at 7,500 ft which is only half the height ( the lowest for their package is 9,00ft) . The earlier batch at least made it to 12,000ft ..... was super disappointed even though they did a refund for the lower jump.

Footage from the ground 

Paid footage from the air

Bunny jump in 2005

I would say if to compare , skydiving is a bit like paragliding ( after the free fall) and it's not scary at all , if really need to compare , I would think Bungy jump will be more scarier as you are left standing there at the height where skydive is jump and off you go , you can't wait and think if you still wanna jump of not.

Cookie Time Cafe

Southern Swine Burger

Bullseye ( Steak burger )

After the jump , we headed back to Queenstown for the refund as they are not able to do it at the drop zone as I had paid cash for it. Also we wanted to have Fergburger again :P , I also wanted to check out the Cookie Time Cafe  known as Cookie Muncher Cookie Bar, which is another mistake. Cos I was just hoping to grab some cookies as gift for colleague so i assumed it will be quite fast , so I ordered my burgers and then went to the cafe. Waited about 30 mins for the burger ( think because of steak ? ) cos saw some was quite fast even though they ordered after me. So after collecting the burgers , I walk over to the cafe which was like 5-10 min walk and ends up I had to queue like 30-45 min just to get my cookies and pay , cos there was a slight Q there plus the fact is there is only 3 staffs there and the cashier had to not only take orders but had to serve ice cream and drinks as well. If I had know , i would have not waited cos ends up our burger are all cold ( cos temperature is around 10 deg ? ) Lesson learnt ! if you just wanted to get cookies from Cookie Time , they actually had a cookie factory shop in Templeton ( about 20 min drive from Christchurch ) , if you are doing self drive , you can actually visit there , heard it's cheaper also But of cos if you wanna try their fresh cookies and drinks , you can only visit this one and only cafe in Queenstown.

It was about 5 pm when we finally had our burger and we decided to drive all the way down south for the night instead of staying near Queenstown , as we had changed our plan and hoping to have one more day for Lake Tekapo before we leave NZ ( big mistake again ).Before leaving we went to the nearby dump station to clear our waste. We came here the day before and could not find it. This is a very well hidden dump station , it's just between the petrol station and the carpark ( with no sign ) so if there were car parking , it could well hide it from view. Fresh water is nearby at the wall of the station , near the gas swap area.
We park at Colac Bay Freedom Camping ground for the night , there is a toilet nearby but think there is no lights at night. Also one thing we found out is that most freedom camping site in the south seems to come with toilet , guess not so much tourists come all the way south so it's much acceptable by the locals. Apparently some part of the country , the locals does not like tourists to freedom camp as some tends to dirty the place. Also surprising the toilets at these camp area in the south are quite clean ( in fact I think almost all the public toilets we went were clean, even some at very ulu places).
We were the only motorhome parking here for the night, there seems to be a campervan quite some distance away ( only saw it in the morning). This is also a great spot as we are parking just next to the sea and there isn't any light pollution here but too bad there was no solar activity that is strong enough  for us to see any southern lights.