The next installment: Rainforests, penguins and fjords

Next up was the Catlins, a region of remote coastline and rainforest, teeming with wildlife and dramatic scenery.

First up was Purakaunui falls, which was very beautiful and the first of many waterfalls to come! We had great fun playing around with the shutter speed on my camera, and captured the almost perfect shot. After a short walk to another falls (the Matai falls), where we were amazed at the biodiversity and structural diversity of these gorgeous rainforests, we stopped for lunch before moving onto Lake Wilkie, a small tranquil lake in the depths of the forest. We were introduced to the first of many native birds, which were extremely curious - fantails, silvereye, bellbirds and tui. A couple of scenic lookouts later we arrived at the Curio Bay campground, surrounded on all sides by wild coastline. We tagged along behind a tour party for a guided walk of the bay, with excellent views of the world's rarest penguins the yellow-eyed, and of a fossilised forest.

The next day we headed through Invercargill up to Te Anau, which would be the starting point for our trip down the Milford Road to Milford Sound. It was a gloomy day and we did think there might be snow on the road, which would have meant it would have been closed. But the next day dawned bright and clear for our exploration of the Fiordland National Park. The mountains were certainly dramatic with all that snow, whilst the road was clear and not so hard going as we had thought, seeing as though we had to carry snow chains (which were never used).

Our first stop was a gentle stroll around Lake Mistletoe, moving onto another small waterfall before the beautiful Mirror Lakes, with fantastic reflections of the mountains. The road followed the Eglington River valley until we turned off for the start of the walk from the Divide to Key Summit. The walk was hard going, very steep in places but exceptionally beautiful and part of the Routeburn track. We did not have enough time for the full summit walk, but contented ourselves with a walk above the snow line and snow-ball fights on the way back down!!

Next up was the Homer Tunnel - a roughly hewn tunnel, very narrow in places and with dramatic icicles lit up in our headlights periodically. Our last stop before our campsite was the Chasm, with dramatic rock formations where the river rushed through. At our campsite we were told that there would be no power, as the generator was on the blink. At the same time, a large bird was mysteriously spotted which turned out to be the world's only alpine parrot, the Kea! We were very pleased to see this, and thought it was very cute and many photos were taken. However, it turned out to be the only one we would see.

The morning dawned for our trip on the Milford Sound, and we were blessed with blue skies. We had fabulous views of the alpine scenery, with highlights being the Bowen Falls, Fairy Falls, and a seal on Seal Rock - aptly named in the singular not the plural! We stopped off at the Underwater Observatory, which was amazing. We were able to see delicate corals, mussels, anemones and a mindboggling array of fish, all living in the top few meters of the cold waters of the Sound.

Once we had finished our trip, we drove back along the Milford Road to reach Manapouri for our stop at the campground. Tomorrow we would move onto Queenstown and Wanaka.