Why oh Why did we come to this part of the planet?

Glaciers I can handle, the ice looks amazing and takes 100 years to go from the top until it defrosts at the bottom and becomes cold water. Not in Invercargill. The cold water just arrives, and arrives fast. The cold rain hits the windscreen so hard, and in such large amounts that I really can't see out the windscreen. Yet will quickly stop, and my wipers begin to give a dry squeak. It then comes again with the same ferocity. I would say that it comes in waves, but if I was driving around in the sea, it would probably be drier.

We moved on from Invercargill, into the Catlins which form the most southerly south bits of the South Island. That's pretty South. And continued to be battered by wind and rain whose previous location had been Antarctica. One of the local attractions is the Sea Lion population. They can cope with the cold and enjoy the isolation, so flourish down here. We were lucky to find a couple of them just down the beach from where we stayed one morning. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen me run, but you haven't seen me run like I did when one these big fat guys decided to flollop in my direction. I was legging it back down the beach, unstrapping Theos from the baby sling to leave as a diversion. Annie laughed at me and pointed out that they were still a very long way away and had stop flolloping after about two flops. Very scary though.