Backpaddock Lakes - Lakes at the Back of a Paddock #mindblown

Wind farm viewing platform, nailed it

The drive over I was worried Sinbad was going to be a problem but he did just fine. I stopped into a place called Palmerston North and got some stuff that the mechanic said would help Sinbad if he got sensitive again. It rained but I did have a couple of scenic stops, including a special viewing platform to see the wind turbines, first time for everything. Imagine if we had those in England. I arrived into Waipukurau and it was raining so I decided to stay in the campsite for the night and then call Trev (guy in charge of the lake) in the morning. The campsite was expensive for what they offered, had a chilled out evening and then the next day it was nice and sunny so called up Trev and he told me there was a guy called Tristan in the house at the top of the road who was in charge of the lake.

Beautiful

Tristan was pretty cool so we hung out then went down to check out the lake. It is man-made, took a long ass time to dig up and then filled from underground springs. There is one boat lake and another cable lake with two System 2 style cables (also homemade), an impressive feat in engineering. Tristan showed me how everything worked and then we went for a wakeboard. Then Trev and family came home and we hung out down by the lake, had a BBQ.

I then pulled Sinbad up by the lake and went to sleep, there was no light pollution so I could open the sunroof and looked up at the sky. It was the first time I had seen that many stars in the sky, it was beautiful.

The next few days were spent by the lake hanging out with Tristan in the sun. There were a number of awesome riders that would come down and ride. I landed my first Raley, technically what I did was called a Galey because I cheated and used the pull from the corner but it was awesome to be able to try new stuff. One day Tristan had a lesson with a young girl called Sam and her parents had just bought a Nautique G23, for the record it is like a tank. I was lucky enough to get a ride on it in exchange for taking some photos, good trade I think. It has a huge wake and even in this lake which is shallower it still kicks you up in the air. 

I took a lot of photos so you have to put up with clicking through them now…

The slalom course gets a lot of action

This is a G23 (or boat tank as it is commonly referred)

Marcus carving round a bouy

Sam wakesurfing behind the G23

Ollie, Eva and Trev playing on a "biscuit"

Hoochie Cole as he is known

Sam throwing a Raley

Tristan playing on his board

Tom proving that not all kneeboarding is stupid

I thought I should take a trip in Sinbad into town to make sure he was working, oh I’m glad I did, he got a little warm on that trip. Fortunately Trev is a mechanic so he took Sinbad with him to work and got one of the other guys to clean him up good. One evening Tristan and I decided that we wanted to go watch The Hobbit and what better place to watch it that where it was made. At the start of the movie there was an intro thanking New Zealand, it made me feel involved with the making of the movie. Unfortunately I am bad luck with cars and Tristan’s car might have exploded a little bit when we got to the movies. So Trev came out and literally swapped cars whilst we were watching the movie, haha. The Waipuk cinema is something a little different to any other cinema I’ve been to. It is like a school theatre with the wooden arms, it was an experience like no other. But a good one none the less. 

Shooting stuff

A couple of days before I left I helped Tristan with a Stag Do, they came down and did a lot of wakeboarding. We also had a clay pigeon shoot so got to fire some rounds into the lake, always a blast, see what I did there? After that the guys were going on a pub crawl with Tristan as their chauffeur, we had to pick Sinbad up from the garage first and then I joined in the excitement. Without going into too much detail there were some international drinking competitions and let’s just say that England came home with gold. You are welcome England!

An awesome place to spend a few days, thanks to the Rowlands for having me.

Woodie’s Wisdom: 5 nights sleeping by a lake does wonders for the soul.

Sinbad's Revenge - 24 Hours in Bulls

After leaving Wellington I was driving up the west side of the country, stopping off at a few beaches to take photos. There was even one beach that I went for a nice little wander along as well, splashing around in the shallows. I like to think of it as a romantic walk on the beach for one. I needed to pee so pulled over in a small town/backwards village called Bulls and as I stopped Sinbad snapped, crackled and popped. It sounded like the radiator was sizzling and when I opened the bonnet there was a lot of coolant and water dripping out of it.

It was a romantic session, any takers?

I put on my calmest face and went in to the information shop, these are called I-sites in New Zealand, very useful places and they know things. I was pointed in the direction of a garage and Sinbad made it there just about and dribbled out a bit just to show George that he was poorly. I was booked in for the morning so I had to find a place to sleep. Fortunately Bulls has it’s own campsite so I crawled down the road and as I coasted into the entrance Sinbad had another attempt at spitting up his guts. I booked in for the night and just left him at a random angle in the driveway. This was a perfect time to go get a well needed beer. Bulls has 2 pubs and I went into both of them, hoping to find a nice place for a drink. The first bar was filled with locals gambling away their money. I don’t want to speculate about what brought them there but I’m sure you can use your own experiences to imagine them. So I moved on down the road to the next bar, it served food! Well, I say food, they offered what appeared to be much so I politely turned that down and just had a beer. A nicer bar it was and the barman only had 3 fingers, like one of the Simpsons! New Zealand has provided me with 3 toes and 3 fingers, I’m impressed. Coincidentally there was some NFL on so I spent my afternoon watching that, I’m pretty sure it was a terrible game. I grabbed some grub from McDonalds, first time since Christchurch Airport all those weeks ago, and headed back to the campsite.

The Bulls campsite, as I’m sure you can guess, was heaving. There were 2 of us there, so we fell to talking. Now I think his name was Danjal, I asked twice and I thought it rude to ask for a spelling. Danjal is a bit of a legend, he lives in a bus that he has done up himself. Not the smartest of cribs but has a hot shower, stove, electricity, bed and TV; all you really need. I was invited in and given a glass of water, a fine host. Danjal is from just up the coast in Wanganui and was down working as a butcher. He has 2 kids who live with their mum in Australia. Danjal was also my first real experience of a Kiwi using “yeah nah” (it’s a popular phrase) and he used it all the time, every time it made me smile. If he had offered me some of his ghost chips I would have fallen out of my chair. He then offered to take me fishing in the river so we went on a little walk, it would appear walking was a new experience for Danjal but we made it. He showed me how to cast a line properly but after a good hour we hadn’t caught a thing so headed back for a good nights sleep.

Who puts an engine there?

After dropping Sinbad off with George the mechanic and sitting around for a while I headed off for some breakfast. I thought, I have some time to kill, might as well visit the Bulls museum. It can’t be that impressive I thought. Oh wow! I was greeted by Robin like a long lost relative, shaking my hand and welcoming me. My guess is that not many people stop by. He was also from England and came out to be closer to family and got involved with the museum and is now in charge. As he showed be around he gave me lots of bits of paper on the history of Bulls, always nice to have reading material. It would appear that even though it is now a small town, Bulls used to be kind of a big deal. If my memory recall is correct, it was a crossroads of New Zealand with a huge timber mill. And during the First World War, New Zealand sent a lot of horses to help the fight but only a few made it home, a very interesting story if you want to read it, I have a copy. One of the horses that returned was called Bess and she died just up the road so I decided that when Sinbad was ready that would be our test trip. Here is the link to the Bulls website, enjoy: http://unforgetabull.co.nz/

I finally got back to the garage and Sinbad was being put back together. Sinbad was made badly, who thinks that putting the engine under the seats is a good place? You need to take out both seats and peal everything off before you even find the engine. George said Sinbad should be fine, we took our

test journey out to see Bess’ grave. We got a little lost because distance on the map Robin gave me was about as accurate as an Alton Towers map! Unfortunately on one of my little stops I bent Sinbad’s key, I know he will have his vengeance, in this life or the next!

The grave of Bess the Horse

My original plan was to head up the West Coast but during my little break I received an email from a lake in Hawkes Bay who I’d contacted before I’d left saying I should pop in. I changed my plans and headed that way.

Woodie's Wisdom: That was a whole load of Bulls-hit

The doctor's surgery in Bulls #banter

Wellington - Capital City with Capital Letters

My first usage of a Doofer!

In Wellington I was staying with another friend I had made at camp, Petrina. A name that seems to be more popular in NZ than in England! For the first time since Christchurch I had a bed and a room. It was really odd to have walls and when I woke up in the morning I couldn’t just be outside by rolling over and opening the door. I hugely appreciated being able to shut the curtains and then be able to sleep after the sun had risen but it was a sudden change and we know how much I love change! My first night in Welly Petrina gave me my first experience of Burger Fuel, it was like seeing the light. It also has the easiest to order online service. And the milkshakes are top notch, we had a lime one and it was delicious. For those that think GBK is the bomb, this is a lot better!

My first day in Wellington I decided to get Sinbad fixed. I called around a few places and found a guy who could get him fixed that day and quickly. I dropped him off and wandered around

My manly beverage

Wellington. It was the first time that I had voluntarily given away the keys to Sinbad, it was scary and liberating at the same time. I walked down to the harbour and they have a special diving board set up over the water so you can come and jump in safely. Genius. I then spent a few hours in a museum called Te Papa, learning about the history of New Zealand. It was very interesting and I got to see a Giant Squid. It was time for a game of American Football so grabbed some afternoon luncheon and watched the game in a bar that had a sofa in front of the TV. I then received the call from Wayne (the mechanic) saying that Sinbad was fixed and ready to roll. We were whole again, wooo. Petrina called inviting me for a drink at a cool bar called Hangar, based on a plane hanger, strange coincidence.

Petrina was away for the weekend so I had a few options of what to do, so I organised a house party with all of my friends. It was off the chain! I’m hoping Petrina reads this and has a fit before she realises that I don’t have any friends and it was just me on my own. The next day it was a bit overcast and rainy so I sat around for a few hours writing my blog for the other places, ha. Now work out where this blog is written. But once the clouds parted a little I decided on a trip to the zoo.

This is a Sun Bear, cute
but scary!

I love a good zoo and even though Wellington Zoo isn’t the biggest zoo in the world it packs a punch with a few different styles and animals. The first part is they have an onsite vet surgery with glass windows so they can show the patrons what they are doing and all the work that they need to do. Something like 80% of all their animals get treated in that facility. They seemed to have misplaced their penguins. I always wonder when an enclosure is empty, where do the animals go? Do they have send them back to the wild for a holiday? That would be nice wouldn’t it. Then you don’t feel like you have been conned into believing the animals would be there. So yeah, zoo. I did some awesome timing of visiting, I got to see the Sun Bears get fed, I hadn’t experienced a Sun Bear before but they are really cool. They have a flabby neck so that if they get attacked from behind they can turn around 180 degrees in their skin and fight back. They also have a yellow sun on their chest! After a fun look at the traditional Tigers, Cheetahs, Baboons, Giraffes and Deer I entered the Neighbours zone (this is more of a TV show joke than proximity BTW), dedicated to animals from Australia. There was a Tasmanian Devil, Wallabies, Kangaroos and of course, there was a Dingo! The best part is that you literally walk through them, just hanging around by the side of the path. It was the closest I’ve felt to the animals out of any zoo I’ve been to.

Good job I don't have any babies! PS, this is a Dingo, now laugh!

Well this is just cute

All that exciting stuff didn’t even prepare me for the chimps, I watched them for about an hour. They are such interesting creatures, so humanlike in their actions and their interaction. There was a baby baby that just stuck on the mumma chimp, a baby that just played around, a couple of older ones that just hung out and my fave, the chimp that just sat there and picked its arse. I have a disgusting photo that I won’t share with you but will let you picture it, of a chimp with pooey fingers licking them clean. It was disgusting but funny at the same time. No wonder they get ill a lot. A bird was flying around the inside enclosure and flew into a window and fell to the ground, an older chimp picked up said bird and carried it up to the fenced window out to the world. A couple of the younger chimps went along to observe and help. Unfortunately in the process of trying to poke it through the gaps in fence the bird was killed but I think the intention was positive. On a simple symbolic level it was really nice to see the compassion of animals even if the result wasn’t the best.

Family photo

Red Panda doing Red Panda things

After that experience I watched as a Red Panda admired the keeper as he took in more food and cleaned up a bit. So chilled out and then followed the keeper around a bit like a dog. I then went to find a Kiwi, they are notoriously hard to find even in a zoo. They live in a blacked out room with one Kiwi on either side and a footpath down the middle. With very limited red lighting you could hear them but couldn’t spot them. Then I spotted one, that it would appear was the easy part. Trying to take a photo of a Kiwi was even harder, for those that don’t know how hard it is to focus in the dark, it is very hard! But I think I kind of succeeded. I had spent so long at the zoo that I was actually ushered out by one of the keepers, you know you’ve had a good day when they are kicking you out, ha. 

Ok fine, this is an actual Kiwi

Told you I saw one!

For the Sunday I was recommended to go to the Farmer’s Market by a beautiful young lady so thought I

A Farmer's Market

would give it a go. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even buying some fruit and veg as instructed, it was good. I even went off script and bought a delicious breakfast for myself. Then I wanted to go up the Cable Car and set off to find the bottom station. This was made very difficult by some roads being closed by guess what? Oh yeah, it was a Christmas Parade. I couldn’t have planned my trip better if I had been wanting to see all of the Christmas Parades in New Zealand. For the record, that wasn’t actually my plan. The road closures led to me trying to do a U-turn on a one way street as I needed to go the other way only to realise that once I was facing into the traffic. After gently nudging a lamppost and going round one loop 3 times I decided to call it a day and have a picnic in the garden. 

After American Football Day I joined Petrina and a couple of her friends in a park overlooking the harbour for a picnic. The best part was a slacklining club was practicing in the same park. They had one that must have been 30 metres long, it was impressive seeing someone walk all the way.

Quick visit home

Prior to departing Wellington the next morning I wanted to succeed in riding the Cable Car but the only way to do this whilst parking was driving to the top and taking the car down. This didn’t make logic to me but hey ho. Having got up there I realised that this still meant I paid for parking but didn’t have to walk to the station, very complicated! But I did it anyway, a beautiful view from the top and a fun experience. After taking the car down and then up again I found out that I could have had a nice walk down through the gardens and then get the Cable Car up. This made what the same beautiful young lady had said make sense. So if you go to Wellington, walk down through the pretty gardens and then get the cable car up. 

My plan was to drive up the west coast to Auckland for Christmas. Hmmmm…

Woodie’s Wisdom: If you are having a bad day, don’t try and force it. Things will only get worse!

I wuv wooo

Nelson - Being at One with Nature Hurts

A rock made of rock pancakes of rock

Part of my day long drive to Nelson involved looking at lots of trees, as those avid readers will know, I seem to have fallen in love with looking at trees. New Zealand has a plethora of trees (this is why you've waited so long for a blog, I was using a thesaurus and got confused). Big ones, small ones, tropical ones, evergreen ones. It’s amazing and the forests look they are having trouble holding them all in one place, no wonder they’ve had to install walkways to the monuments. One of these well placed walkways was to the pancake rocks and blowholes. It was very humid but well planned, the roundtrip walk was only 20 mins so I

Selfie on a wobbly bridge

got cracking. I got to see lots of pancake type rocks but the water didn’t want to Free Willy through the holes. I was looking forward to it but alas. Further along the road I found a bridge, not just any old bridge, but a wobbly one. It is like the millennium bridge just not as big but with the same wobble factor (prior to fixing obvs). It also involved a small walk, making me complete my 30 mins of exercise for the day meaning that everything that happened later was bonus and therefore making me healthier, there you go mum! It was even and educational walk with information boards around the route and awesome rusty vehicles that they used when the place was a gold mine.

One of the rusty mining vehicles

When I finally arrived into Nelson I got to my campsite and received a text from Jimi (friend from camp, lives in Nelson, also short for Jimi-Zara, friend girl) saying that she was going to be free sooner than expected so I only needed to fill an hour. I had a chat to my campsite neighbours who just so happened to be from England and in dire need of medicinal smoking grass, unfortunately even with my contacts I wasn’t able to provide. We did have a nice chat about traveling South Island, they really went big and actually slept in the back of their car with no mattress either. Jimi picked me up around 8 and we went for drinks and dinner at a pub, enjoyable experience. I then realized that my

A drunken guy wearing a
Champions t-shirt (Modin reference)

night wasn’t going to be that chilled. We headed into the “city” for continued beverage consumption. My 2nd big night in a week, my aging body nearly conked out. But we did go to a few interesting bars and nightclub things. It was my first real appreciation of the kiwi way. I was wearing trousers but only had the jandal (flip flop in kiwi) on. I was allowed in everywhere and didn’t lose them to a sticky dance floor. There was a lot of dancing until we got to the club that had the football on and I might have got distracted.

Larry the llama

The next morning I was collected once again (I enjoyed the chauffeuring) and we went on a tour of the city. Much like my experience in Invercargill I encountered the Santa Parade, this time it made a meal of Jimi showing me around. We then met up with some friends for a delicious brunch. Jimi and I have a very similar approach to organisation and rushing. Eventually we went to the beach, which was cleverly placed right next to my campsite. Before that we went to a little zoo farm like thing that had monkeys and we definitely didn’t feed them, did we Jimi? #rebel. At the beach we did beach things like a bit of splashing around and getting my tan on.

Jimi, Edd & Tim selfie

We also tried a bit of slacklining as we brought one with us. Tim was by far the best, I realised yet again that I don’t have anything that resembles a core muscle group. It’s like they went out for milk 5 years ago and haven’t been seen since. This could explain all of the injuries that I have had since. After that I think we all needed an early night so I crashed at the campsite with instructions to be at Jimi’s house bright and early for our next adventure…. Abel Tasman!!

When I arrived at Jimi’s house and was immediately confused as to why there was no one at the house until she fetched me and showed me to the shed which when you walked round it was magically another abode (thesaurus time again). The views were amazing, looking over fields for miles and only being about 300m from a river thing. We hung out for a bit and then slowly headed over to Abel Tasman (massive national park, lots of trees, by the sea). We arrived a little late, again the planning was a little poor, so there was only one walk that we could do. This is based around the fact that they need to know how many people are staying in the park overnight and if you are supposed to be coming out that day then they have to send a search party. And if you are extra special, you get a boat and helicopter to remove you from it. That wasn’t us by the way. The nice girl in the tourist office thing mentioned that she did the 4 hour walk that we were going to attempt in 2 hours 30 mins and she was barefoot, do I hear a challenge being laid out? Yes you do. As Jimdog and

Abel Tasman view

I were only wearing our flipity flopities anyway we thought we would give it a shot. For the record, 12 kms is not a distance that the modern human foot is comfortable walking. There were some pretty views and lots of trees, some sea and some incredibly sharp little stones underfoot. We had exactly 3 hours 45 mins to complete the 4 hour walk before the last ferry home left and we did it in 3 hours 15 mins. Success!! And we even had time to run into the sea and cool off before the boat ride back. A fun day out. Oh, the chaffage was terrible. Nearly forgot that. It was bloody hot and I was in agony by the time we got to the end, I won’t go into too much detail but it wasn’t pretty. The one thing that I needed and didn’t have, Aloe Vera! I did have something that was nearly as good though. Jimi has an outside shower, not the summer house kind but an actual shower with warm water. It was amazing, perfect pressure and if I stood on my tippy toes I got the view of the countryside. A new and interesting experience, I want one in the UK!

On the way back from Abel Tasman we stopped and picked up the freshest fish and chips I’ve ever had, it was so soft and tender and was battered to perfection. That evening the whole clan were there

Sinbad sleeping in a field

and we watched TV, the first proper TV I had watched in NZ other than American Football. There was something called the Block, home design show from Australia, then some Criminal Minds. It’s the small things that remind you of home. When it was bed time I went out to Sinbad and was lost in a field, everything was quiet and still. It was an amazing experience, like nothing I’ve ever felt. Looking up to the sky I saw more stars than I thought existed, it felt like a dream there were so many.

The next morning Jimi was tasked with babysitting her nephew whilst everyone else in the family was off doing stuff so we took him to the beach. Lewis is 2 ish I think and incredibly cute and very photogenic so I had a lot of fun taking photos of him, some that might even make it to my website, who knows… As well as having an outdoor shower, Jimi’s family are incredibly creative. From calling their son Fox to wanting to build a chic backpacker hostel made out of shipping containers, they do it all. Another example of Kiwis using shipping containers for use everywhere. At the end of the drive they were building a container pop-up coffee shop for the summer. 

After lunch I left for another adventure after a sunny and thoroughly wonderful time in Nelson, a place that I would love to go back to. I headed off to Picton to catch the ferry to North Island. Jimi’s mum told me that I probably didn’t want to go the windy windy way so obviously that’s the way I went, more by accident than intent. It was an incredible journey, driving up a sound was amazing. And turning the corner onto Picton Harbour was amazing. I found my campsite and realized that the weather the next day was supposed to be shitty so not the day you want to go up Queen Charlotte Sound. So I booked my ferry for the day after when the weather was going to be much nicer and had a really chilled out day, wandered round Picton and watched a couple of movies. It was my first day that I hadn’t done anything, it was a nice change, like being back in England all over again…

My day of travel I woke up to sunshine and few clouds, just what I’d ordered. The ferry was a little delayed so took a walk into town to grab some breakfast, a warm bacon and egg bread thing. The crossing itself was pretty uneventful, beautiful views and a nice comfy seat inside. Made it to Wellington unscathed!

Sinbad and I on the ferry

Thank you South Island, it has been a pleasure. I will be seeing you again. One of the best days of my life and some memories that will last a lifetime. 

Woodie’s Wisdom: Walking barefoot may seem like a way to feel at one with nature but nature will win and your feet will hurt!

I'm off to Invercargill - The Best City in the Southern Most Part of South Island (apart from any that I've missed)

Baby seal eyeing me up

I booked myself a couple of days in Dunedin because I had heard that it was a nice place. The weather put a bit of a downer on things. Day 1 It was cold and windy but I decided that I wanted to go look at some animals, the couple the previous night had raved about it. The place was basically a farm that used their land to look at animals, if you pay extra you can watch them shear a sheep, probably not worth the $20. It was good fun, we used an off-road vehicle to travel off the road to locations that you can’t walk to. But we got up close to some seals, as in about 2 feet away from them. Fun fact about seals: they are not scared of humans, they roll over and look at you and then go back to sleep. It might be because they can kill us, who knows. Then we bounced along another rough path to see some penguins, some Yellow-Eyed Penguins, don’t let that suck you in, they have yellow eyelashes. But I did get a photo of a mother in a hole with its baby. On the way to this point you walk down a covered walkway and on the way back up you stop by a cubby hole in the wall and inside there is a baby Blue Penguin and it just chilled and smiled. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos, you will just have to imagine a smiling penguin. As the lucky last person in the line the guy showed me another cubby hole, so technically I got 2 for 1. Better than Tesco on Black Friday that deal.

If you look closely there is a Yellow Eyed Penguin there

Not an albatross

Only a bloody Royal Albatross

I had a nice sit on sofas in the cafe because it was warm and watched a storm roll on by. It was the most comfortable I had been in a while, Sinbad for all the great things doesn’t have a sofa. Next purchase right there! Once I got bored, I drove back down the hill to the Royal Albatross Centre. It sounds very impressive but it’s actually because the bird is called the Royal Albatross. I’m sure if I had paid all the money in the world to walk up and take a photo I would now remember why they are called Royal. I can’t even be bothered to googlify it and pretend. It’s a big ass bird that this place is the only mainland spot you can see them. After refusing to pay to go on a walk I sat outside and was insistent that I wasn’t going until I had a photo of an Albatross. It was bloody windy so I got a little cold, thanking the purchase of a wind-proof jacket for keeping me only cold rather than freezing. And just before I was about to give up hope, out popped Alby, only bloody named the bird. He flew around for about 20 mins so got lots of snaps, it’s a big white bird. Thank you Alby! I had a little drive round Dunedin and didn’t find a lot of interest but did find a surf beach, due to the strong ass wind it was entertaining to watch but no-one had the nuts to get in the sea. It was a nice place to eat my din dins though, a seagull came to join in the fun. 

Windy evening in Dunedin

Arriba 

The next day the weather was still shitty, worse even so I decided to cut my losses and move on but wait… I decided to make a detour first. This detour was to the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, I was excited to see all the badasses of Kiwi sport in a museum. No, I went upstairs in a train station and there was 2 rooms. By this you can probably assume that there aren’t many people in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. In all fairness I didn’t know who most of them were other than the rugby lot. It was an interesting way to spend half an hour. Followed by a hearty breakfast of churros I was on my way to Invercargill, the city that never wakes!

A journey through rain is never fun so I decided to make it a little more exciting and take the Southern Scenic Route, upon reflection there is a website and everything so if you ever get bored and need something to do… To make this even more exciting I decided that I was going to go off the beaten track, now that literally means off the beaten track. It was my first experience of a “rough road”. It’s like a sketch of the Mona Lisa, a bit half assed but you can tell what it is. I drove into a forest and was a little worried that Sinners was going to let me down in the middle of nowhere (in 90 minutes on this road I did no encounter another human), he didn’t. Go Sinbad!!

Not the beaten track

After this mini adventure I thought I could handle a bit more so went to popped down to visit a beach, it was raining so I left. Then the weather started to clear up and some waterfalls appeared on the helpful brown signs so thought I might as well. After all the rain that we had they were a lot less pretty and graceful waterfalls and more a raging torrent trying to fight over a cliff. Very impressive none-the-less with some pretty walkways through the trees. One of the waterfalls was so strong that even 10 metres away the camera was getting soaked through.

Raging torrent waterfall

Pretty and delicate waterfall

After this I ignored some signs so that I could plough on through to Invercargill, the excitement getting to me. After stopping in a small town called Fortrose to grab a beverage I tried to draw the owner of the only shop in 100km into a bit of a chat. I will go as far to say he is the least friendly person I’ve met, maybe even in the whole of New Zealand! But we will find out! After this small

Long and straight
(not terms used about me) 

town I found what felt like the longest road in the world, it was straight for about 10km then a bend then straight for another 5km, then a bend… you get the idea. AND this is part of the Southern Scenic Route. Then when I got to Invers, already chummy, I accidentally drove through the city centre and out the other side because I was expecting something a little more impressive. Upon finding my campsite I asked where was good to go on a Saturday night, expecting a list to choose from, I was given 2 bar/restaurants. It’s ok, I was still holding out hope that the southernmost city in NZ was going to come through for me. Whilst having my tea I watched Coronation Street with some Frenchies, it felt like watching Neighbours at home and I don’t do that, #rebel! Invers was shaping up nicely!

The Waipapa Point Lighthouse

Bottom of the world selfie

The next morning I wanted to visit the southern tip of the South Island and found that it was actually one of the brown signs I had ignored the day before. I weighed it up and thought, why not. As soon as I got onto the long stretch of straight roads I regretted my decision, I ignored the unfriendly man in Fortrose and powered through. I got to slope point, it just looks like a rocky cliff but I was there, took a selfie and left. One-upped the parents though as they weren’t allowed down, take that mum and dad! On my way back I stopped by (hour detour) Waipapa Point Lighthouse and got up close and personal with a Sea Lion, they big!

The sneer of derision

Now this is where shit got real, I arrived back into Invers at 1.45pm and the city was overflowing with people, cars everywhere and roads were closed off. It’s like they heard I was coming and had arranged for everyone in a 50km radius to come celebrate, COME ON INVERCARGILL!!!! After the initial excitement that everyone was waiting for me I did ask a nice friendly (not from Fortrose) man what was going on, acting cool and ready to be surprised it was for me. Unfortunately some guy was upstaging me, called Santa, what a dick! They were having a parade in his honour. In all fairness, I’m glad I stopped and watched, it was bloody impressive. I’m sure everyone in town was involved. It put a big smile on my face.

The guy that stole my thunder

Rocking the driving there boss

Shout out to Dave

I then left and made my way to Queenstown, it was a road through mountains with pretty views, yada yada, the usual stuff. Oh wait, apart from there were lakes! I was looking forward to a place that had people and stuff to do that didn’t involve going: “that’s a pretty view/animal/mountain”.

Woodie’s Wisdom: Firstly, don’t eat garlic and fish in the same meal, it’s disgusting. Secondly, don’t try and get close to a Sea Lion with disgusting breath, they get offended and breath on you and their breath is worse. Use this wisdom as you see fit.

Flying in unison