Invercargill, New Zealand - November 2014

Anyone who reads my waffle may have noticed that I haven't posted anything relatively new recently. Well, there is a good reason for that, I've been busy actually doing some walks or maybe I should say tramps, yeah that's right I filled the chilly bin, slipped on my fur lined jandals, and headed across the ditch for some mud tramping with my kiwi bros, sweet aye! Or, for all those that aren't up with the kiwi lingo, I've been over in New Zealand doing a few walks with my kiwi mates. I even managed to get Sam to come over for a couple of the walks, we revisited the Milford and the Routeburn which I'm sure I'll get around to writing up at some stage this year, after five weeks of reasonably solid walking there is a bit of a backlog of stuff to write about. On a slightly different note Melbourne welcomed us home in style, the Air New Zealand pilot had to spell out the temperature as we arrived back home as if he thought that the punters on board wouldn't believe it, "ladies and gentleman where on our final approach to Tullamarine and should be at the gate in 25 minutes, currently on the ground the wind is from the north and the temperature is 40 degrees Celsius, yes that's 4-0- degrees Celsius". The good news was that it cooled to a balmy 29 last night, however as I write this the next day where heading for a predicted 41 degrees Celsius, there is a howling northerly straight off the desert and the air is filled with smoke from the bushfires around the state, welcome home!

Organizing my gear at the Quest, I still had ten days food to go in yet.

All right, I thought I'd just do a quick post about the city that I started my New Zealand adventure in, Invercargill. Invercargill doesn't seem to get too much good press, the words boring, flat, windy and cold seem to crop up a lot in lots of articles about Invercargill, however after my journey over from Melbourne via Christchurch I was quite happy to be welcomed by smiles at the airport and the hotel, true the rain was coming down sideways and the temperature was that cold that even the locals were saying that it was very unusual but I immediately liked the place. After unpacking I headed off for dinner before giving Sam a call on their free wifi and having an early night. Why is it that in almost every country but Australia you can always easily access fee wifi even in the countries that I would call developing countries (before all my kiwi mates start hooking into me I don't class NZ as a developing country). Australia really needs to lift its game when it comes to tourism.

Invercargill is fairly flat, making it easy to walk around.

I spent the next morning walking around town organizing ten days worth of food and supplies for my trip over to Stewart Island, finally after organizing my boat trip over I had the afternoon free to have a wonder around town. Apart from the features that I mentioned earlier Invercargill is also famous for motorbikes, in particular one motorbike 'the world's fastest Indian' and I had lobbed into town on the weekend of the annual Burt Munro Challenge. The streets where full of motorbikes of every type and age and despite the cold wind and rain the pubs were doing a roaring trade.

The Southland Museum & Art Gallery.

With the streets being basically dead flat Invercargill is an easy place to get around on foot, the city has a surprising number of cool cafes and a micro brewery which are all worth checking out, unfortunately I only had time to try out a couple. One thing I noticed is that the Invercargians (?) seem to have some kind of fetish with the devil going on, straight out the door of the hotel I was into Hell Pizza where I made my way to Devil Burger, on the way passing numerous flyers extolling the virtues of the local rock band Devil Skin, however the truly evil place was a couple of blocks to the north, Macca's, there is just no escaping the evil!

Hell Pizza.

Devil Skin, I'm sensing a theme here.

Devil Burger,  Mr Feral's recommendation.

And then there is pure evil.

After pondering the significance of all the references to the devil for awhile I headed up to the Southland Museum & Art Gallery in between showers. The Museum is a great place to spend a couple of hours, it gives you a bit of and understanding of life in the deep south of New Zealand, and you are able to take your camera in. The Museum has a cool exhibit of the New Zealand's unique lizard the Tuatara, while reptiles are a dime a dozen in Oz they are very rare indeed in NZ, so it was pretty cool to check out a few of these pre historic looking lizards.

Greenstone.

The Museum is also home to a collection of historic motorbikes, and a 'Beyond the Roaring Forties' exhibition with showed how hard the early settlers had it in the south. From there I checked out the Maori exhibition which showed the tools that they used for hunting and gathering as well as talking a little about Greenstone and its significance. After a couple hours in the museum I headed back through town to my hotel, getting a photo of the giant umbrella (I presume its got something to do with the climate) and a couple of photos of the old buildings in town. Back in my room, nice and warm, it was time to start packing for my ten day walk on Stewart Island, it was almost time to leave the bright lights behind.

Every town in Australia and New Zealand seems to have one of these sad reminders.

I can only guess that the giant umbrella is a tribute to the Southland weather.

The Dirt.
I stayed at The Quest, Invercargill, as usual for New Zealand they were extremely helpful, looking after my bags while I was on Stewart Island for ten days, giving me extra washing powder to wash my muddy gear when I got back, giving me free wifi for two devices, and generally helping me find all the supplies that I needed for ten days on Stewart Island. I ate at the Zookeepers Cafe and Devil Burger, both are excellent, the Zookeepers Cafe also has free wifi. The Southland Museum & Art Gallery is worth a couple of hours, entry is by donation. Invercargill may not be a destination in its own right but if you find yourself there its a great little town to spend a couple of days.

Invercargill CBD.