Southland Bound

Monday 31 March

Despite it being a bit of a grey day and a late start because we got chatting with other campers, the journey down into Southland was so much fun.

The roads out of Fiordland were beautiful - mountains to our right, rivers and pastures to our left, with rolling hills behind them. We crossed several squeezy one-lane bridges and found ourselves in Southland very soon.

Our first port of call was Tuatapere, the self titled Sausage Capital of New Zealand, after local butcher Leo Henderson won NZ Sausage of the Year in the 1980s! The sausage celebration here is as weird and wonderful as you’d expect of small town NZ!

More surprising were the beautiful Fiordland landscapes on display in the old Bank of New Zealand building - they were stunning. This building is now both studio and art gallery for local artist Wayne Edgerton who paints incredibly detailed and realistic huge canvases of Fiordland. The foreground southern beech forests were so evocative, but the mountains and peaks behind them were absolutely photo realistic. It looked like he may have had a hand in painting the "facilities" opposite, but only the front section I reckon (the ends looked a lot more amateur but still pretty cool).

Just 10-15 minutes south of Tuatapere we hit the coastline with the cold wild waters of the Southern Ocean stretching out to the horizon. We paused at McCrackens Rest to take in this epic view over Te Waewae Beach (no dolphins or penguins spotted) and were blown away (almost literally) by the wild beauty of the coastline. Looking out to sea there was a thick dark line of cloud along the horizon - I wonder what that forecasts for our weather...

From here we followed the bumpy coastal route to Gemstone Beach (as recommended by Nickie Fernandes). The coastline here was stunning and we met two lovely people at the beach - one of whom was Stewart who told us all about the quake history of the area and how in 1817 a huge quake had destroyed a Māori village and the resulting tsunami wave had crashed up and over the cliffs along the shoreline - probably 20-30m high! The other lady, whose name I cannot recall was intrigued by Banjo - she and her husband were debating moho v caravan so we gave her a Snowy tour and I think we sold her on the caravan option!

Gemstone Beach is named for the exquisite semi precious stones that wash up on its shoreline - glorious colours and patterns. The waves wash up these wee pebbles of beauty and you can spend hours combing the beach for your favourite combos. Some people where collecting bags of them which felt a little greedy and contrary to the spirit of kaitiakitanga - guardianship, protection, preservation, stewardship. I picked up a tiny handful but left my favourite very tactile green stone carefully displayed on a bleached and weatherworn piece of driftwood which set it off nicely.

There were windows and a roof and a few walls visible inside the cliffs to the western side of the beach which we presumed were a bit of creative and artistic fun for the local landowner - but it turns out they have literally built their property deep inside the crumbling cliff, on the landside but slowly being revealed to the beach as the cliffs erode.

As is customary, I dibbled for Debbie - letting the foamy waves rush up to and over my feet - and was shocked to discover the water was not nearly as cold as expected - probably 17/18/19 degrees Centigrade, similar to Lake Tekapo.

Around an hour of exceedingly bumpy roads later we arrived in Invercargill, having passed an array of windswept leaning trees along the route - the gales down here are obviously strong and pretty common.

In Invercargill we registered at the NZMCA park in an old fishing boat cabin, all dolled up with with slightly eccentric nautical themed decor, then headed off to find dinner as we were feeling lazy. We ate at The Foundry which was rather a bland modernish restaurant attached to a Speights bar - but the food was pretty decent so no complaints.

I took a rather dark walk as sun set, to get my Fitbit steps and I have to admit Invercargill was not as vibrant as some of the places we have visited - hopefully a day of exploring will change that opinion!