Guess it’s back to grind after a day off from writing yesterday. Much to our surprise we woke to a sunny, clear day. Out of interest I checked on the status of the Milford Sound road. Due to more than 4 inches of rain in the area last night, the road will remain closed all day Saturday. We really were lucky to make our way through there yesterday. Sadly one worker was killed and two were injured clearing the landslide shortly after we went through yesterday morning. We headed off via the scenic route to Invercargill, about 170Kms away on the south coast. From a touring point of view, 200Kms seems to be a comfortable distance to have between hotels. We get there early afternoon after touring around a bit on the journey, and then we have the afternoon to explore the local area. Very different to our “touring” in the States where getting to the destination is the prime objective rather than the scenery on the way. Also 2-3 hours driving is a lot easier on the driver than 10-12 hour days!! First stop today was Clifden which was home to the longest road suspension bridge in NZ, loosely modelled on the one at Clifton, UK
Clifden Suspension Bridge
Todays journey was a lot different to recent days. The roads were a lot straighter and the terrain a lot flatter. A week ago we would have thought the scenery was fantastic, but after the last few days it was just OK. We have been spoiled for life as far as scenery is concerned.
View From the Passenger Seat
After Clifden we headed onto Tuatapere where, according to the guide book, was a store called “Yesterdays Cafe”. Given the quality of NZ pastries we made this our morning coffee stop. The cafe itself is a museum of articles from the ‘60s, including 60’s LP’s playing on ‘60’s “Radiograms”. The pastries didn’t disappoint either. The town itself must have had an artist or two as there were murals on many buildings.
Bus Shelter
Washrooms
Approaching Invercargill, we hit the outskirts some way back from our destination. Normally there are no outskirts; could we have discovered a really large town. The answer is yes, they have traffic lights, roundabouts and 4 lane roads!
We checked into the motel, what a surprise. There was a separate bedroom and bathroom as well as a living area with two sofas and 32” LCD TV. The kitchen even had a cooker! All for around $80 a night.
We headed out through the town to Bluff, which is almost as far south as you can go in NZ. On the way there we saw numerous old American looking cars. In fact they were taking over the place. By the time we got into Bluff the cars were everywhere. It turned out all the cars were Chrysler Valiants which were originally produced in the US and then manufactured in Australia from 1964-1981. I guess there must have been a rally of sorts given that it is a long weekend over here. We continued through Bluff to a lookout on the south side of the town, it was about 600ft above the town, and really windy up there. We discovered a panoramic setting on the camera so we tried it from the viewpoint. Not sure how well it will come across.
Panoramic View from Bluff Lookout
After looking at the views we headed back into Invercargill to find a quilt shop Lyn had read about, but (un)fortunately it was closed. Next stop the grocery store for food, then we headed over to the NZ equivalent of Home Depot. Since we have been here we have done touristy things, we figured it would be interesting to compare every day prices and products with those back home. At a rough guess I would say things cost upwards of 25% more than we are used to. Don’t think the pension would stretch too far down here.