INVERCARGILL, RIVERTON AND BLUFF

Having never been to Invercargill before, I was curious to know what this southern most NZ city  would be like, and I was not disappointed. The city fathers did Invercargill people a big favour when they planned very wide streets and a massive park. I guess there was plenty of space back then.

Eighty landscaped hectares make up Queens Park. It is huge, featuring long wide promenades which meet at a band rotunda in the centre, rather like European formal gardens. The various botanical 'rooms,' include acres of roses, rock gardens, a Japanese garden and large pond, herbacious areas, and stands of podocarps and evergreens - a great mixture of exotics including wonderful rhodedendrons. There is even an aviary. I was so entranced I forgot to take photos! 

Luckily, we both LOVE museums since the weather has been so patchy. The Southland Museum and Arts Centre kept us happy for hours. The museum is housed in a large modern pyramid shaped building, and specialises in displays featuring our natural southern environment and sub antarctic and antarctic explorations. Skeletons, taxidermied animals and dioramas bring it all to life. We loved the  shipwrecks dislays, especially the one of the General Grant which was wrecked on the Auckland Islands in the mid 1800s. There is even a rocking deck to stand on to really get in the mood! It brings it all to life - wonderful for kids and adults too. The museum ALSO has Bert Munro's original Indian motorcycle on which he won the world speed record at Bonneville in America in the 1960s.

We made the most of a good day on Monday to drive out to the coastal town of Riverton, where my great grandmother and her family lived when she was a girl. The town is situated right on a river with a bridge to the residential area on the other side, where there is a beach called, Riverton Rocks. I always wondered why the Vaughan family chose to settle in such an inhospitable place, so far south. It is very cold here in winter and the there is plenty of wind.  But I was delighted to discover what a pretty spot it is. The main street has the usual assortment of shops, old churches and buildings which once housed banks, a post office (now a cafe) and other stores. The Masons were secular businessmen who had their own building here. 

Once again we made for the museum, which has been dubbed New Zealand's best small town museum. There, stories are told of the Maori who lived in the area, and the European fishermen, sealers, who were attracted by large populations of seals, which sadly, they clubbed to death to the brink of extinction for their meat and fur. With the seal population depleted, they turned to the whales. It seems so brutal to us, but they did need the whale oil back then for lots of things, fuel for lamps and lubricating machinery, and of course whale bone was needed for ladies' corsets, a necessity for propriety back then. Wonderful stories are told of people who were shipwrecked and marooned on the southern islands; wild inhospitable places. These stories read like Robinson Crusoe!
Many of the Whalers married into Maori families which resulted in the first mixed race families in this area, going back over 150 years.There is an excellent WW1 display too. Like all areas in NZ many families suffered the loss of their young men.

Then we headed for Bluff, the end of the civilised world as we know it. The Bluff community doesn't seem to have embraced tourism much. Bluff oysters are what the place is most famous for, but it was out of season and there wasn't an oyster to be found. Many of the houses and buildings are 'au naturel,' ie, shabby. The town looks out over Tiwi Aluminium smelter, which isn't a particularly charming aspect. However the smelter does provide work in the area, and the aluminium is shipped around the world. The cheap electricity our Government provides for the running of the factory has been the subject of controversy among New Zealanders.

Heading through the township and out to Bluff's Marine Reserve takes you to a wonderful look out area and walking track, which goes around to the other side of the Bluff hill. We only did a short part of it, but enough to see the rocky coast and a nice bit of native bush. There is a road up to the look out on the hilltop so we went the easy way. Here we could see right out to Steward Island (Rakiura) and several other islands. A long sand spit stretches out to the east, and sandy islands dot the view before there is only sea.  Ruapuke Island, Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands must be navigated by any ships heading south from here.

In the days of sailing ships Bluff was sometimes used as a port or would be passed by ships coming from South Australia, as it was closest geographically and favourable winds would blow them south of New Zealand and onward to Europe. With wild weather and mist, and little in the way of navigational instruments, some ships came to grief on the Auckland Islands.

January 2017 is over (already) and yesterday, the first of February, we moved from our parking spot behind a pub at Lorneville, just out of Invercargill. It was a good park and the cod meal we had at the pub on the day we arrived was the best pub meal we'd had in a while. The only snag was we were so full we could hardly move!

In preparation for the next leg we filled the truck with diesel in Invercargill, got fresh water then took the coast road around to Monkey Island where free camping is available. We stopped for lunch with several other motor homers parked there, but decided to move on as it was so windy on the beach. We were glad to find a dump station at Tuatapere. It is always a great feeling to get rid of grey and black water and have plenty of diesel and fresh water to last the next few days. Though a little sad to leave the south coast, it was nice to be heading back into the mountains. The views through the glacial valleys were spectacular. We arrived in Te Anau in the afternoon and are pleased to settle into the NZMCA park here.