Invercargill = not brilliant
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2007
1
41
47
Trip End
Nov 2007
Invercargill,
New Zealand
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
before we properly got into it we spotted a cement works to stop at and photograph but then we got onto the real scenery and boy oh boy (not a phrase i believe i've ever typed before and i feel a little foolish about it now) was it scenic. every single point along the way was marked clearly on the several maps we had, and the lonely planet and then by the side of the road were not only car parks placed handily for the attraction (generally waterfalls, lakes, bays and weird rock formations), but also maps and an indication that was legible from a moving vehicle as to how long the return walk was from the car park, brilliant, just brilliant. we stopped a few times, most notably at Curio Bay which is the largest petrified jurassic forest in the world bloomin ace it was - it also was home to orcas, dolphins and other wildlife... and the biggest silliest seaweed that we've ever seen. i'm afraid to say that i too am now a little scared of seaweed, i didn't used to be but i've been hanging out with this weird 23 year old girl for far too long and she's passed it on. we stopped for lunch at Nugget Point and didn't quite catch it at the right time so it looked like a heap of rocks... ah well. the whole of the journey was splendid and littered with stops to go 'oooooh' and 'wow' at the various splendours that this amazing country has to offer.
one stop was in a near ghost-town to make a phone call to the place we wanted to stay at that night. then as i was coming out of the public loos i noticed an ill bumble bee crawling across the floor so i picked it up and transported it to the nearest flowering bush. this got a shouted question of 'what you doin?' from Aymi and then an echo from possibly the scariest man i've ever seen outside of horror film set in the interior of America, he then proceeded to rant on about how you shouldn't save them but 'smash em' and started to cross the road towards us... we got back in Jucy and sped off.
when we arrived in Invecargill we realised that we weren't going to stay here for very long, as far as introductions to a town go, and endless strip of fast food shops and massive bakeries is not the most inspiring, we stopped at Woolworths to buy food (not just pik n mix, but food like what you get in supermarkets... weird). luckily our little campsite was a bit out of town and included a working sheep farm, and therefore LITTLE BABY LAMBLETS!! all of whom took the word gambol to new limits, bouncing sideways as if posessed, twas marvellous. the best bit was the very very very very very very very very cute little orphaned lambs and goat who suckled on our fingers and just looked so pathetically beautiful that we really couldn't tear ourselves away.
