Invercargill, South Island, New Zealand

11th December – 13th December 2017

After boarding the bus at Te Anau, we both drifted off for a nap – Joe had been awake since 5, and I had woken up with a headache, so we both needed some more sleep. We had to get two different buses to get to Invercargill, so when we got to Gore, we had to change over. On the second bus, there were only four of us, which sent out quite a message to me about how Invercargill was going to be. The second journey was only about half an hour and the driver dropped us off outside the hostel, which was very helpful of him.

When we arrived at the hostel, it was around 11am, but we couldn’t check in until 2. We were still allowed to use the facilities though, so we paid for our beds and went up the kitchen and lounge area for a bit. The weather hadn’t improved, even though we had driven a few hours further south, so we weren’t really sure what to do with ourselves. We sat in the kitchen area for a while and had a think and a research to try and decide what to do.

As it was pouring down, we didn’t really want to venture out too far, so once we had done a food shop, we decided to have chilled afternoon and stay in the hostel, watching some films.

After we had eaten lunch, the rain had stopped, so we thought it would be a good idea to try and find the information centre, to get an idea of what Invercargill had to offer, as we were staying for two nights and we didn’t want to spend all of our time in the hostel.

Invercargill is New Zealand’s most southernly city (and the most southernly city in the world, according to Joe’s research), although I’m not too sure how it qualifies for the title of a city, but that’s what we were told. Although it is the most southernly city, there was a town further south, called Bluff, which is the most southernly place on New Zealand’s mainland, so we wanted to see if we could get there to see what it was like. The information centre, wasn’t very informative but we were told we could get a bus for $20 each, one way, but other than that, our options for getting to Bluff were limited. As we thought that this was pretty extreme, we decided that it wasn’t worth it.

After we had looked around the shops, we walked back to the hostel, via a shop to buy a HDMI cable so that we could watch the films on the TV instead of my laptop, like usual.

Back at the hostel, while it was quiet, I thought it would be a good idea to cook some meals, as we didn’t know how busy it would get, although we didn’t expect many guests. I put some food on to cook slowly, while we put a film on in the lounge next to the kitchen. While we were trying to set the film up, we couldn’t get the HDMI cable into the TV as it was too close to the wall, so Joe went out to see if he could find an adapter for it. While he was out, I thought I would see if I could figure out how the TV worked and discovered that the TV itself had Netflix, so we didn’t need a cable or an adapter, but he was already out. Luckily, he got my text before he bought it, so we didn’t waste any money.

When Joe got back, we put on Arthur Christmas and ate popcorn, trying to get ourselves into the Christmas spirit. I kept an eye on the food, while we spent the afternoon chilling out and eating treats, it was so nice to not have to think about what to do next.

We had fajitas for tea, even though I had spent the afternoon cooking hot pot – we decided that this always tastes better the next day. After tea, we watched some more Netflix and tried to make some plans for the next day. As we had decided that the bus was too expensive for what it was, we thought we would hire bikes again, although that didn’t go so well the last time we did that.

We went for some fresh air later in the afternoon, as the rain had stopped, and we had spent all afternoon sat inside. We wandered up and down the streets of Invercargill, and ended up in a shop, buying ourselves some Christmas hats, as we just don’t feel Christmassy at all!

When we got back to the hostel, we went to bed. There was mix up in the room and there were seven people looking for beds, in a six-bed dorm. Luckily, we were the first people in the room, so we had already chosen our beds, so we just lay there and watched three friends decide between them who had to go and find a sofa to sleep on, as the reception was shut.

The next morning, we woke up naturally, as we didn’t have a time schedule to stick to. We got up and had some breakfast, before getting ourselves ready for the day.

Once we were ready, we walked to the bike shop, to hire our bikes to cycle to Bluff. We cycled down the road before Joe decided his bike was too uncomfortable, so we had to push our bikes back to get him another one that he could fit on. He got his new bike and we set off again.

After we had been riding for about forty-five minutes, I needed to stop. We had been riding into the wind, which was difficult enough, with big trucks driving passed us, getting very close and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. We had a little break and decided that the best thing for us, was to turn around and head back towards Invercargill. As much as I hate giving up on things, I could not have carried on cycling for another two hours in those conditions just to get to Bluff, never mind the cycle back.

We turned around and changed our itinerary for the day. Joe had found a place called Demolition World, while doing his research. It was on our way back, so we thought we would see what it was like. When we got there, it just looked like a junkyard. When we walked in, it was one of the weirdest and creepiest things I have ever seen. There were sheds made into different rooms, such as a pub, a church, a barber shop, a toy shop, etc… all kitted out with creepy dolls and equipment. It was so weird and I had seen enough, so we left and carried on back to Invercargill.

Instead of cycling on the road, like we had on the way, we cut across onto a walking/ cycling path and thought it would be nicer to cycle along the river. Although the wind was still blowing in our faces – I’m not sure how that works – I felt much better knowing that we didn’t have a mammoth ride ahead of us. The river wasn’t what we expected: it was pretty dirty and smelly, so once we got back into the city, we rode along the roads and made our way to Queens Park.

We stopped in Queens Park and ate our picnic lunch on one of the benches. After lunch, we decided to take the bikes back to the shop. As we hadn’t had them for very long, we only had to pay for half of the day, which was a nice little bonus.

As we had saved money on the bikes, we thought we would treat ourselves. We walked through the centre, looking for a nice café to sit in, but instead we found a frozen yogurt place. Although frozen yogurt is meant to be healthier than ice cream, ours definitely wasn’t. It was a self-serve bar, which is dangerous, where we could pour our own yogurt into our bowls, before choosing sauces and toppings of all sorts of sweets and treats, before weighing it at the end. I may have gone a little overboard, but it tasted so good!

After our frozen yogurt treat, we made our way back to the hostel and sat in the café there. As we were guests, we got a discount, so that was our justification for that drink. We sat in the café for a while, researching some more activities for our remaining time in New Zealand.

Once we had had a little rest, we went back out for a walk. We walked up to Queens Park, as we hadn’t really seen it properly yet. We wandered through the park and I had a play on some of the benches that they had made out of trees, until I hurt my ankle, so decided I should stop that. We carried on wandering around: we walked through the rose garden, we sat in the middle part and walked to the stream, before we went back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, I went for a shower, before tea, while Joe had a go at the blogs (well the notes at least). After we were showered, we sorted through our bags, getting them ready to pack them. We noticed that some of our stuff had been moved: things form my bag, like my toothbrush was in Joe’s bag, when I know it was definitely in my bag when we left in the morning, and Joe’s washbag with his hair clippers in, which was buried in his bag, as we don’t use it often, was in mine. I wasn’t very happy with this, so we complained but got fobbed off with a story that they were moving our stuff because they had put us in the wrong room (which explained the seven people and six beds issue) but then decided that they didn’t need to because the room we were in wasn’t full our second night, so we could stay. I didn’t see it as an excuse as that was their fault and they should have waited until we got back and asked us to move, if they wanted to. They didn’t listen to us though, and there wasn’t much we could do.

After sorting our bags out, we went up to the kitchen for tea. After we had eaten, we chilled out for a bit and sorted some things on my laptop, before going to bed, later on.

The next morning, we had another lie in, but I got up around 8.30 because I was hungry and wanted my breakfast. Joe followed me up, so I wasn’t eating alone. After breakfast, we chilled out a bit; we finished packing our bags and checked out just before 10.

Once we had checked out, we wandered up to the bus stop slowly. The bus wasn’t until 10.45, but the bus stop was about twenty minutes away and we had to carry all of our bags. We got there just as the rain started to come down again. Luckily the rain wasn’t heavy and the bus arrived not long after we got there. We got on the bus, ready to make our way back to Queenstown.

Invercargill was an interesting place to say the least. To say that it’s the most southernly city in the world, you would think that there would be something more to it, but it was a very quiet, not-much-happening, kind of place. We tried our best to make the most of the time that we had there, but are ready to move back to the lively Queenstown, with hopefully some better weather.

To travel is to live, Katie x