Yesturday we hit slope point which is the southern most tip of mainland NZ, it was a nice enough place, full of sheep just like NZ should be, with a little sign to the equator and the south pole. We had intended to get from Dunedin to Invercargill in one day but with the darkness closing in and the quality of the roads shoddy to say the least, we thought it was best just staying in the backpackers at slope point, which turned out to be a really nice place to stay.
This morning we made an early start and got into Invercargill and Bluff which is basically the southern most point again. Not quite as far south as Slope point but it's where the main road going from the top of NZ to the bottom finally ends - or begins as the locals would have you think!
Invercargill itself is pretty dull to be honest but they had a good enough museum where we spent the afternoon watching a film about an old Kiwi guy called Burt Munro who had a fast Motorbike. It was a really nice film actually think it was called the worlds fastest indian or something.
The night before we headed down here we spent near Dunedin on the Otago peninsula, sleeping in a 1979 Bedford of all things that was attatched to a backpackers out there. The peninsula was nice, it has the only mainland Albatross colony in the world, unfortunately they over charge a little so we had to skip that. They also have lots of penguins, not that we saw any - too many people around I should think and it was really dark. Really pretty area though and we visited the castle, which was quite an unexpected landmark in NZ.
We did get to see some penguins though, we vistited a colony in Oamaru where we watched loads of blue penguins going home for the night after a hard days fishing. Then on the way from Dunedin to Invercargill we stopped at Curio bay where there's a fossilised forest on the beach, you can see all the stumps and logs and stuff, we met a yellow-eyed penguin just wandering across the beach. Apparantly yellow-eyed ones are pretty rare so that was cool.
I forget when it was I last posted here... ... wow that was ages ago back over on the North Island. Well since then we've worked our way down the eastern edge of the south island, stopping in at various places along the way. Christchurch was a cool city just so very english, all the street names were places from the UK we stayed on Dublin street and found Nottingham street a little way out of the city. It had alot going for it as a city, I really liked it, loads of art and a good social scene in the evening. We went out to a little bar in the city one night where we sat outside and watched a pretty good cover band play and watch a rugby game projected on to the wall behind at the same time, in typical kiwi fashion more attention was paid to the rugby than the band even by the band.
We went over to Mt. Cook/Aoraki and stayed in a little campsite on the northern shores of lake pukaki where they had trampolines! So we had a nice long go on the trampolines both during the day, loking at the beautiful blue lake and towering snow-capped mountains, and at night looking at the stars and silhouettes of the mountains. We also took a nice walk through the mountains over rope bridges and stuff looking at the glaciers and mountains, the scenery there was seriously stunning, as with most the trip there's plenty of photos but to be honest they don't really capture how cool the landscapes are. Most the time you feel it's not worth taking a photo because you just can't capture it well enough.
Anyway, it's all going well and the cars ticking over well enough. It even passed it's Wof, sort of. In fact Fiona managed to drive it up the steepest street in the world yesturday, so it can't be doing that bad.
Fiona's wandered off to see if she can find us a pub to go sit in for a bit, you'll be surprised to hear she's decided she likes beer after visiting the Speight's brewery. Lol she's just come back dissapointed as everywhere's closed. Got some sweets instead though Yay!
Speak to you all soon
Joni
PS I'm going to try and put a few photos they will be fairly randomly selected and unedited but if I manage to get any up before eunning out of time they will be here
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| Up at Invercargi |
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