Illicit Invercargill
(30th Nov - 5th December)
Seeing as we'd missed more of the Catlins, we decided to take a second trip and go a bit further afield first, then work our way back. We chose to go to Nugget Point which is another lighthouse but also a cliff top area where you can see seals swimming below, and guess what? There's another yellow-eyed penguin look out! We took a look but saw none (we couldn't be bothererd to wait, the penguins had almost become common to us). We headed up the cliff and saw some seals frolicking in the water below which was pretty cool. They could also have been sea lions, but we were quite a way up so I couldn't tell if they had ears or not (I think that's something to do with the difference? Did you do your homework yet???). I'm thinking of investing in some binoculars. We were soon joined by a couple of coach loads of people so we decided to make a dash for it back down the scenic route so as not to get stuck behind any of them. The views were brilliant, a lovely beach - even saw people in the sea! I wouldn't say it was warm enough but I wasn't brave enough to try the water to test my theory either.
We headed back and just enjoyed the route this time, stopping off at various viewpoints and actually going to see the Niagra Falls this time. The Guidebook said that some have compared these to their North American relative and couldn't decide which were better. I think that may've been the Aussie humour coming out in the Lonely Planet - unless I missed something major, they were nothing spectacular! But they gave us another reason to stop off at the cafe for some more yummy food.
We went and saw Rhys Darby on Friday night and in the afternoon Chris got his hair cut and
his Movember Moustache shaved off. Rhys Darby was hilarious, if you ever get a chance to see
him I'd recommend it. He had a warm up comedian, Chris something-or-other, who was ok, but he used quite a few NZ "in" jokes which I didn't always get. The people of Invercargill seemed to find them amusing though. Much of their material was based on how rubbish Invercargill was though, but not quite as bad as Gore apparently (another place in NZ, that we actually passed through on our first day on the road).
Our last day in Invercargill we had planned to check out, go to church and then head off up the coast. However, more Christian hospitality got in the way of our plans, in a good way! Joyce and Russell, who we hadn't even got a chance to speak to at the time, invited us back for lunch. They invited us and another member of the church, Brian, back for a roast. Mmmmm! It was really interesting but also yummy. It was beef wrapped around stuffing (called Beef Olive?). Even though I'm not a big fan of beef I enjoyed it immensely! I think I need to try it with Chicken... mum, can you get practicing for when I return???
After our lunch we headed down to Bluff, which you'd expect to be the furthest south you can get (aside from Stuart Island), but it's not. It does have a signpost pointing to lots of places in the world though, which is all I really wanted to go for seeing as I missed the one in the North Island last time I was here! We then headed up Bluff Hill which has amazing views of the surrounding areas. It was also really windy so we didn't stay there for long!
So I would give Invercargill more credit than most of the locals I've met, but they did make Chris nearly faint when they injected us with our final vaccines. Not to worry though, we're now all dosed up for our S.E. Asia trip - just need to figure out where to go now...
That's all I've got time to update for now, but I'll try and get the blog fully updated over the Christmas period (maybe even some pictures) when we've invested in a little luxury and will be getting out of the 'campervan' for a couple of nights, hooray!
Seeing as we'd missed more of the Catlins, we decided to take a second trip and go a bit further afield first, then work our way back. We chose to go to Nugget Point which is another lighthouse but also a cliff top area where you can see seals swimming below, and guess what? There's another yellow-eyed penguin look out! We took a look but saw none (we couldn't be bothererd to wait, the penguins had almost become common to us). We headed up the cliff and saw some seals frolicking in the water below which was pretty cool. They could also have been sea lions, but we were quite a way up so I couldn't tell if they had ears or not (I think that's something to do with the difference? Did you do your homework yet???). I'm thinking of investing in some binoculars. We were soon joined by a couple of coach loads of people so we decided to make a dash for it back down the scenic route so as not to get stuck behind any of them. The views were brilliant, a lovely beach - even saw people in the sea! I wouldn't say it was warm enough but I wasn't brave enough to try the water to test my theory either.
We headed back and just enjoyed the route this time, stopping off at various viewpoints and actually going to see the Niagra Falls this time. The Guidebook said that some have compared these to their North American relative and couldn't decide which were better. I think that may've been the Aussie humour coming out in the Lonely Planet - unless I missed something major, they were nothing spectacular! But they gave us another reason to stop off at the cafe for some more yummy food.
We went and saw Rhys Darby on Friday night and in the afternoon Chris got his hair cut and
his Movember Moustache shaved off. Rhys Darby was hilarious, if you ever get a chance to see
him I'd recommend it. He had a warm up comedian, Chris something-or-other, who was ok, but he used quite a few NZ "in" jokes which I didn't always get. The people of Invercargill seemed to find them amusing though. Much of their material was based on how rubbish Invercargill was though, but not quite as bad as Gore apparently (another place in NZ, that we actually passed through on our first day on the road).
Our last day in Invercargill we had planned to check out, go to church and then head off up the coast. However, more Christian hospitality got in the way of our plans, in a good way! Joyce and Russell, who we hadn't even got a chance to speak to at the time, invited us back for lunch. They invited us and another member of the church, Brian, back for a roast. Mmmmm! It was really interesting but also yummy. It was beef wrapped around stuffing (called Beef Olive?). Even though I'm not a big fan of beef I enjoyed it immensely! I think I need to try it with Chicken... mum, can you get practicing for when I return???
After our lunch we headed down to Bluff, which you'd expect to be the furthest south you can get (aside from Stuart Island), but it's not. It does have a signpost pointing to lots of places in the world though, which is all I really wanted to go for seeing as I missed the one in the North Island last time I was here! We then headed up Bluff Hill which has amazing views of the surrounding areas. It was also really windy so we didn't stay there for long!
So I would give Invercargill more credit than most of the locals I've met, but they did make Chris nearly faint when they injected us with our final vaccines. Not to worry though, we're now all dosed up for our S.E. Asia trip - just need to figure out where to go now...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
That's all I've got time to update for now, but I'll try and get the blog fully updated over the Christmas period (maybe even some pictures) when we've invested in a little luxury and will be getting out of the 'campervan' for a couple of nights, hooray!
posted by wobblepop at 6:48 am
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