After a month in Auckland, we headed to Invercargill. Its the city farthest south in New Zealand. Outside of a few cities in southern South America, it is the closest city to Antarctica. Spring here can be harsh as we found out. New Zealand Airlines warned us in Auckland after check in that landing might not be possible due to an expected gale. We made it, but that night it was cold, whipping winds, and sheets of rain shaking the house. Then, a bright sunny morning was filled with spring flowers bursting with color. We found the flowers here are mighty hardy. In Japan, cherry blossoms fly with the first gusts. Here, it took four gales before they started to fly. Spring in Invercargill is not your typical tourist destination but we never got soaked nor blown over. As always, its about planning with alternatives.
In the city, there is a nice bus service that gets around to most of the areas. We stayed two blocks from Queens Park so hardly used the bus. We rented a car to explore outside of Invercargill. This included Bluff, a port and village with ferry service to Stewart Island. We stopped in Riverton and Tuatapere on a drive west to Fjordland. To the east we visited the most southern point of the South Island at Slope Point, along with walking among petrified forest in Curio Bay.
I’m limiting the photos in this post to Queens Park and residential streets.
The first group of photos come from our daily walks in Queens Park. We always found something new there. Mostly self explanatory.
A tuatara reptile
the stumpers
Some petrified wood
The second group has street views from the Invercargill Chorus Cabinet Trail. Chorus is the local Wideband Internet provider. These are 22 outdoor communications cabinets that artists have decorated. I tried to capture the local residential streets around each work.
Our Tuatara Story (the proud papa)
When Daughter was in 3rd or 4th grade, we went to a demonstration on reptiles at the local library. The presenter started with the question, “What are the five orders of reptiles expecting: lizard, snake, turtle?” Daughter answered first: Tuatara. The presenter about fell off his chair. He explained in 30 years he had only received that answer three times. I suspect he didn’t expect it from that little girl in the second row. As you will see in the wikipedia entry, these reptiles are unique to their order and only found in New Zealand. So it was fitting that we could see several tuataras when we were in New Zealand together.