Putzing around Invercargill and Bluff

Invercargill is the main city on the west side of the southern part of the South Island, but it turns out there isn’t thaaat much to do there. We had a vague plan to visit Stewart Island, somewhat of a nature preserve off the southern coast, but not too much of an agenda for Invercargill. Turns out, our lack of planning was unfortunate during the Christmas to New Year’s week – we discovered that all the ferries to Stewart Island had been booked up, so that wasn’t possible for us for a day trip. We’ll need to come back :)

Instead, we ended up checking out the Southland Museum in Invercargill, which was extensive and had some very well designed exhibits, including a Tuatara exhibit. Tuatara are a type of reptile endemic to New Zealand that have become endangered and that are often referred to as lizards, but that are in fact categorized as dinosaurs. We got to see quite a few of them, including some babies, which fulfilled our dinosaur quota for… ever?

We then decided to take a drive down to Bluff, continuing on the Southern Scenic Highway. Bluff has a really nice lookout that gives views over their bay (complete with aluminium factory, which is powered by the Manapouri Power Station) as well as the ocean. We also got some great bird photo opps :)

Continuing through Bluff, we stopped at the lighthouse and then Stirling Point, where we had a beautifully scenic lunch overlooking the ocean, and then took an afternoon walk on their oceanside path. We passed many locals who were headed out to the point to free-dive for Paua (Maori for abalone).