The Curse of the Crystal Spirit Artist

Sounds like a Nancy Drew novel, Ay?

So my friend Anna's boyfriend (Jason) came to visit her last week and they had rented a car to go adventuring. I decided to join them on Friday on a trip to...

The Catlins: Get back to nature on a captivating road trip through rugged coastline, isolated forests and wildlife-filled bays! (thank you Lonely Planet)

Got that feelin' youre third wheelin' ? Nah, Anna and Jason were really cool and the third wheel's job is to take a ton of pictures. No big. I was having a ton of fun ;)

Kaka Point

Our first stop down the East Coast was the beach at Kaka Point. Beaches are always amazing, but the coolest part was all the small tide pools amongst the rocks. We even found an 8-legged starfish alive and crawling!

Nugget Point

Our second stop was Nugget Point but we had a few adventures along the way. We're following the map (which isn't very hard when there's usually only one road. Yes, in all of NZ) and we have to venture on to this gravel/rocky road along the coast to get to the point where there's supposed to be the rarest of all penguins, seals, and a light house with amazing views! Along this tiny road by the beach we see a small house (the first one in ages). Then we notice there's a sign resembling something of a store so I convince everyone to stop to check it out.

Chapter 5: Nancy Encounters the Crystal Spirit Artist

Now before you think I'm even remotely exaggerating...

As we tip toe through her magical displays of gnomes and fairies in the yard, an old hippie woman with dry white hair comes out to greet us. She welcomes us into her 10x10 gallery shed and warns, "No pictures allowed." Then, if the garden gnomes and fairies weren't strange enough, she shows us all of these crystals and rocks and small paintings and fairies and unicorns.

And I bet you saw this coming. What does every spirit artist worth her salt have? A troll. A protective troll "that may EAT YOU!!" to be specific. I hope by now you know I don't joke around, but just in case...

In order to discourage insanity, we chose not to purchase spiritual art of any kind. In retrospect, I believe this was our downfall (or literally the sheep's downfall...)

We moved on pretty quickly after that. We parked at the first landing halfway up Nugget Point and unfortunately came at a bad time to see the penguins. We saw zero penguins. Since they are supposedly the rarest in the world, I guess zero is a fair number to see.

We walked to the next spot up the point to see the seals. Apparently, when they say you can see seals they mean you can stand hundreds of feet above them and pretend that the black smudge on the breakwater below is a seal. Fun? No. But did we just accept that and move on? No. What would Dora do? Explore.

There we were hiking down the grassy mountain. No trail, no permission. It only cost a muddy butt and a little sweat to come 20 feet away from the seals! And let me tell you, so much cooler than a zoo! We were very careful not to speak louder than a whisper and we stayed behind a bush to try not to scare them. The babies were the cutest with their little blubbery bodies plopping along :) 2,700 pictures later, we hiked back up and continued on.

Last stop: the Lighthouse. There were AMAZING views of the water below and the huge rock formations! Absolutely beautiful. Nothing funny about this, just awesome.

Purakaunui Falls

Wanting to get home before dark, we chose our last destination only a little farther south. This was such a great quick walk into what seemed to be a tropical rainforest. Five minutes in you find the waterfall! Its not huge and you can't walk behind the falls, but its still a beautiful place!

Murder or the Curse?

On our way out there were a few sheep in the road just hanging around like lazy puff balls. We had some carrots for snacks that we thought we could feed the sheep with. Anna stayed in the car while Jason and I tried to get closer. No surprise, the sheep kept walking away. When we tried to run to them, they ran too. Instinctively, we wanted to catch up. (predator-prey psychology? i dont know...) We jumped in the car and Anna started to slowly continue our drive down the road. The car was obviously faster than the sheep and we stopped at first, but it was kinda funny that they stayed on the road and kept running. Now we're not monsters-- we did stay a safe distance away from the sheep, and a little exercise is good for any animal. Then we noticed it: the Fatty. There was a really fat sheep that started to lag behind and it was just the most hilarious thing we had ever seen at the moment. We still remained a safe distance away but I guess the Fatty decided not to run anymore and moved to the side of the road where there was what looked to be a grassy area with bushes. That seemed like a logical move except for the fact that there was a 10 ft drop about two ft off the edge of the road! The Fatty took one step and poof! he was gone. We were sure that such a fluffy fatty like himself would roll down and hop back up. We stopped and got out to check anyway. Apparently sheep have no physical relation to cats. Poor Fatty was lying at the bottom of the drop amongst the bushes. He lifted his head a few times, but he didn't get up and scurry away.

We couldn't get down to get a better look at him, and there weren't any farmers around to tell. We payed our respects and left a half-empty milk jug on the road hoping someone would stop to pick up the trash and find the sheep. Anna and Jason say we're not murderers (or at least it wasn't intentional). I think that this was a curse put on us by the Spirit Artist and her troll. We didn't buy her crystals that she swore would bring us luck, and then we mocked her crazy lawn decor. If the sheep incident wasn't enough, 2 hours after I got home from the trip I lost my voice. I wasn't sick and I'd been fine all day, but after telling the sheep story 3 times, my voice was gone and didn't come back for days.

Coincidence? I think not.