Invercargill

We left Queenstown on Friday around noon after bidding our friends “Adieu” and drove down Highway 6 along the edge of Lake Wakatipu, en-route to Invercargill. At the end of the lake we stopped in at Kingston, a little town with a railway that travels between Kingston and Fairlight. The train and engine are in amazingly good condition and obviously well cared for. After leaving Kingston we headed south and the land became much flatter than we have encountered anywhere else in New Zealand and the roads, for the most part, very straight more like Alberta. Needless to say we made good time and arrived in Invercargill mid afternoon.

We checked in to our Motel, The Monarch Motel in Tay Street. Our unit, a one bedroom is very large, clean and comfortable with good cooking facilities.

Saturday - we had an easy morning and then went in to town for a reconnoiter. Downtown was pretty dead, as most people have left for their summer vacations. Many of the businesses are closed until mid January. After leaving the Downtown we headed out to The Bluff to book our passage to Stewart Island and Ulva Island on Monday. We decided to have lunch at The Anchorage Café and ordered the seafood chowder, as we wanted to cut down on our food intake. The bowl of chowder was delicious but absolutely enormous. It could have fed an army; hence, we had a very light salad for dinner.

Sunday we took a drive to the Catlins, via Gore and Balclutha. The drive to Gore was uneventful and much like Invercargill pretty dead when we arrived. We did not stop for long just a quick visit to the Gore Gardens. They were small but had enormous trees. Just before Balclutha we stopped at a place called Peggydale Farm and had coffee. Instead of getting back into the car we decided to take a quick look in the gift shop where they had lots of expensive merino/possum clothes and beautiful leather goods. We hadn’t been in there long when there was a cloudburst and the rain came pouring in through the roof. Jim and I went straight into action pulling away racks of clothes and shelves full of leather goods. Amazing how you just leap right in there. One of the sales ladies asked where we were from and then told us her sister-in-law used to be the cook at Anchor D Ranch in Turner Valley, Ab. Eventually the rain subsided enough and we resumed our journey.

By the time we got to Nugget Point it was merely a drizzle as we walked up the hill to the lighthouse and on our ascent, which was very steep and the cliff a sheer drop on one side, we met a couple and they were from Okotoks!!!! As we reached the summit it began to rain harder and harder. As we had almost a kilometre return trek we got absolutely soaked on the way back to the car. Needless to say we did not stop for anymore sightseeing. However, it didn’t seem to bother the fur seals frolicking below us.

Monday was an early start to drive to The Bluff and catch the ferry to Stewart Island. The ferry was actually a very fast Catamaran but even so it was an hour journey. As we got out into the sea the swell was around eight foot and although many people on board were seasick Jim and I were just fine. We disembarked in Oban, Stewart Island. Everything is very Scottish here in the south of New Zealand. We went to the hotel across the street and had coffee, then strolled around the town and visited the National Parks Information Centre, which was very interesting. The islands are either predator free or have embarked on a program to make them so. These predators are all introduced species and have decimated the indigenous bird and reptile population. Since the eradication program started the numbers of threatened species have increased considerably.

Around lunchtime we boarded another catamaran for our trip through the Paterson Inlet, culminating in a guided walk on Ulva Island. From Paterson Inlet you get great views of all the shoreline and little bays and coves of Stewart Island and on Ulva Island we got to see rare birds and plants. We managed to see three very rare birds, the Saddleback, Kaka and Rifleman. We also saw Tuis, Shags and Albatrosses. Apart from the lichens, mosses, liverworts and ferns we also saw rare green hooded orchids. We managed to get photos of all the birds with the exception of the Rifleman. This little bird only weighs 5 grams and does not stay still for hardly a second. It flew past my ear and its wings were beating so fast it reminded me of a hummingbird.

After returning back to Stewart Island we decided not to wait for the six o’clock ferry but to return on the 3:30 pm as a gale was forecast for the later time. After disembarking we retrieved the car and drove a short distance further south to Stirling Point at the very end of Highway 1. This now meant we had been at the very north end of Hwy 1 at Cape Reinga on the North Island and now the most southerly point on the South Island. As we were quite tired from our day’s exploits we had an early dinner then came back and had an early night even though it was New Years Eve.

Tuesday morning, New Years Day, the rain was beginning to subside, so we left for a drive around the Southern Scenic Loop via Riverton and returning through Tuatapere pronounced Two Tapery. It was raining so hard at Riverton that we just drove on through. We reached the bluff near Gemstone Beach and sat in the car to eat our picnic lunch without venturing outside. After leaving there we needed the washroom so stopped in the little town called Tuatapere. The outside of the washrooms were the most decorative we have seen on our travels, with murals on three sides. After leaving the ornate washrooms and with the rain having subsided, we crossed the road to visit Gallery 65. What an apparition. Wayne Edgerton was the artist who had done the Murals and his gallery was full of his beautiful Fjordland landscapes. The Gallery building used to be a National Bank of New Zealand building, which he bought and turned it into a working studio and art gallery. He was even kind enough to let me take the photos for you to enjoy. He is self-taught and now an internationally renowned oil painter. Don’t miss the photos.

Tomorrow we leave Invercargill and our hosts at The Monarch Motel, Kyle & Kerry, who have made us very comfortable, despite the weather and also accommodated our internet time at no extra charge, so that we have been able to update this Invercargill blog for all of you to follow our journey down under. Thank-you so much K&K.

It just remains now, before we head out tomorrow for Dunedin and hopefully a dryer drive through the Catlins, to wish all of you ”blogging in”, a Very Happy New Year for 2013 and may you all stay safe, have good health and happiness……………..

Barbara & Jim