Sounthern Catlins - Gore - Queenstown

The Southern Catlins are most famous for its scenery and as we started to drive up the east coast we found out why!
The scenery was great even though it is winter here it didnt matter, we got our maps of particluar places we wanted to go to so it took us about 4-5 hours to get through them all..
First stop was the famous lighthouse and Curio Bay where NZ's major ship disaster happened, home now though to seal colonies..and where we encountered our first NZ traffic jam!

then we headed on through the petrified forest ( harry potter eat your heart out!) - fossilized wood from millions of years ago that now looks like stone.. up to Slope point - the most southern part of the South island and extremely windy too!!

After lunch we headed north for Nugget Point where apparently a colony of yellow eyed penguins live and each day at dusk they return to the beach just like after a days work with the fish for the family... We got there at about 5pm and true enough they all started popping out of the water onto the beach..but unfortunately you had to watch from afar so no pics...
We finished the Catlins and drove 2 hours further north to Gore to stay the night and to take part in some curling at thier renowned olympic sized ice rink the next day..! however when we got there the next day the rink had already been booked by professional skaters and hockey players! So instead the lovely lady on the reception felt bad and gave us a "tour" of the leisure complex instead complete with shamrock shaped spa pool and their meeting room where they had their tea!!
so we got to head to Qtn early than expected and planned to go to Deer Park Heights on the way as this was where a lot of the Lord of the Rings scenes were shot - according to the official book and guide to locations that ger had bought! (big LOR buff!)
I hadnt realised taht it was actually a working deer farmand it turned out to be a really amazing place.
It was like being on an african safari only the animals were different - we had to drive through all of them to get to the top locations, these included: miniature horses, pot bellied pigs, deer, duck, goats, sheep, himalayian Thar (very hairy goat like dudes), Lamas, Alpacas, massive furry Bisons and Tibetan Yaks!
(We actually ate Yak in China too and they are well nice!)
But the Bison were the best and they looked so cosy with their all their fur, but i nearly hit one of their horns with my left wing mirror trying to drive through them..

The pigs were a bit gruff and defintely needed their teeth cleaned...

However the Alpacas and Lamas were the funniest and very nosy... one in particular looked as if all she needed was a set of Pat Butcher earrings and a bit of lippy and she'd of been all set for a night out!!!

All the animals are tame enough and you can feed them and walk through them which was well cool.
Once at the top though the views are amazing of Qtn and surrounding area. The map they give you at teh bottom when you go in tells you where each LOR shot was taken and of what and whom and at each loaction there are signs so its pretty easy to navigate although you need to know the movies and have a good imagination! So i got lunch ready in the van while the other 2 early wet themselves running around...lol

We left the park then after lunch and had to head for the offices of EZY CRUIZA as we had broken the table leg holder in the van and had to call back in again to get it fixed before we went north - oops.. so after this drama we dropped Jess off in Qtn and headed north to Wanaka....and got a pic of cleaners falls on the way!!