We could have spent much longer at Milford Sound but we would never have left so we headed down to Invercargil, the southern most city of New Zealand instead. Fortunately, as cities go, Invercargill is particularly drab so we can rest easy on the descriptive words. But what Invercargill lacks in style, the people make up for in friendliness. We got chatting to the owners of the
Invercargill Top 10 Holiday Park and they ended up by giving us 6 freshly laid eggs from their farm. Maybe if we had sparked up conversations with the population of Invercargill, we wouldn't have needed to visit the supermarket so often? On their recommendation we walked through Donovan Park to the nearest pub. 30 minutes later, we were gasping for a beer and after a refreshing Monteiths we played Pool (Steve won) and darts (Steve won) before realising the pub was also a betting shop. Arguments ensued about the sensibility of betting after a beer (Beth won) and 3 bets later we had exhausted our kitty for the night.
The next day we drove south to Bluff - the second southernmost point of New Zealand. An immensely windy drive up Bluff Hill gave panoramic views of, well, a small port and even smaller village with it's redeeming feature being a view of Stewart Island albeit shrouded in mist. We took the obligatory photo of the multi-destination signpost and stopped at Fred & Myrtle's Paua Shell house. Unfortunately Fred and Myrtle passed away recently and for that reason a spooked Steve had to be dragged into the house to see the rather bizarre interior....a room with Paua shells lining the walls. A bit surreal and confirming our opinion that people in Bluff are slightly strange. Steve did a round of "I told you so's" all the way until the start of the Southern Scenic road, the Gateway to the Catlins. We stopped for the night at the Curio Bay motor camp, famed for it's sightings of penguins and the rare Hectors Dolphins. The penguins were quite sensibly hiding from the wind and were nowhere in sight. .
Similarly the Hectors Dolphins were not around prompting a foray of bad jokes from Steve starting with 'how careless of Hector'. You get the picture. We finished the day by walking to the beach to see the remains of a petrified forest - tree trunks from the Jurassic age that have been preserved for 180 million years. Seeing as New Zealanders consider artifacts from 100 years ago to be ancient in context of their history, these were a pretty amazing sight and deserved of the international recognition bestowed upon them.
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