4/3/10 (invercargill)
Invercargill-Bluff-Slope Point-McLean Falls
Rain, rain, go away. Come back when we are no longer in a camper. Jon says that I made the rain come since I was wishing it away. Maybe so and for my bad attitude towards the rain I also got bitten in the middle of the night right smack in the forehead. I don’t know how a bug got so lucky to sneak into our camper in the middle of the rain. And what stupid bug would bite someone in the forehead! But it happened and because of my sensitive skin it will likely swell up and be there for a good week or so.
After an attitude adjustment we decided to check out the town on Invercargill. We saw tuataras, a reptilian from the dinosaur age that is only found in New Zealand. They have a successful breeding program and the babies look quite cute.
The other thing Invercargill is known for is having the motorcycle that was in the movie, The Fastest Indian starring Anthony Hopkins. The motorcyclist wanted to make sure the motorcycle stayed in the southland so he sold it to a local hardware store where there is now a small museum inside the store.
Jon also happened to come across a microbrewery called Invercargill Brewery so we decided to do a tasting. Their most popular is the Pitch Black which is a very dark beer, hence the name, and goes well with oysters. The most interesting thing we have found about the breweries is that they sell beer in 1.25 or 2 liter bottles and of course in regular beer bottles too. It’s the coolest thing because t looks exactly like a coke bottle with a label of the beer. People often bring back the bottles for refill so it’s environmental friendly. Apparently this is only done in New Zealand so as the saying goes, when in New Zealand buy beer in liters. We bought a 1.25 liter of their Pitch Black.
We talked to the girl running the place and found out it was oysters season and Bluff, a town 15 minutes away was supposed to have really good oysters. So onward we went to Bluff. It’s a quiet town and since it was Easter weekend there wasn’t much going on never mind it was raining like cats and dogs. We went to the very end of the road in Bluff and found the neatest signpost, which has 5 posts pointing in different directions. It had Sydney, Tokyo and other cities on there and indicated how far it was from that point. Right above the signpost was a little inn that had oysters. We tried the Bluff oysters, which are twice the size of Hog Island oysters. Very meaty and full of flavor. Delicious. I love oysters and could’ve eaten a dozen more.
Then we headed towards the Catlins Coast. We stopped at Slope Point, which is the most southern point in New Zealand. To get there we had to drive down a very rugged road. I thought our dishes would break from all the bumps. Then we had to walk 10 minutes to the signpost which wasn’t fun in the rain and trying not to step on sheep poop along the way since we walked through a sheep farm. We snapped a quick photo of the sign and headed back to the car. There’s also a sign at Cape Reinga in the north island, which we were close to when we visited Pete and Danielle. So another thing to add to our list for next time since we now have visited Slope Point.
We ended the day at McLean Falls campsite with hopes that there will be sun the next day.
Like: Invercargaril Brewery, Bluff oysters, Slope Point
Dislike: Our clothes getting soaked and muddy
New Zealand, South Island in Daily Adventures
Reader Comments (4)
Thought of you today, the new edition of Scrabble is going to allow proper nouns.
When you are in the land down under, please hold a cute Koala Bear for me :)
xoxo, Seattle Annie
We will definitely say hello to the koalas for you!