Not many people carve out the time in their New Zealand road trips to drive too much further south from Dunedin. Rather they bomb across to Milford Sound or Queenstown and head north again. Not us though; our guidebook rates the southern coast as potentially the most beautiful area of the country.

We only stopped for a night in the Catlins National Park; the near constant rain, to which we’ve been subjected throughout our New Zealand trip, showed little sign of easing. We overheard conversations in the camp kitchen of how beautiful the walks and the countryside is, but we aren’t great hikers at the best of time and neither of us can think of anything worse than snivelling our way through wet, muddy forest paths and eating soggy sandwiches…

The pleasant forest drive transferred us into coastal scenery, which was splendid indeed. We drove past deserted beach after deserted beach: easily explained because (a) there were hardly any other cars on the road and (b) there was usually no easy way to get down to the sand! We did manage to clamber through the bushes to one deserted beach to discover that it wasn’t quite as deserted as we thought, as our footprints weren’t the first of the day!

As the southern scenic route drew inland, the weather turned against us and the landscape became very familiar: bleak green fields, grazing sheep, with cars and houses few and far between. In fact, if you were shown a photograph, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’re looking at an average country road in Wales. The weather is beginning to get us down, a bit: it has rained almost every day for a while now and sometimes it rains for most of the day and night.

I’d love to bring your more photos — but we hesitate to get out of the car when the wind is blowing rain into our faces! From those below, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s blue skies all the way. It’s not: We wake up to rain, mid-afternoon it stops and beautiful blue skies appear for anything up to an hour, then by early evening the skies are grey and the rain comes in once more. Here’s hoping that the weather improves as we make our way north again.

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