I had two weeks off here and nothing scheduled while I was away. I had another migraine (actually two) that derailed plans to have a post then I spent a week with my family. It was the school holidays for my son. We decided to drive all the way to Invercargill (South Island, New Zealand) to visit family and why not do some touristy exploring while there? So we did. We visited Bluff, walked up a hill to a look out and saw Stewart Island in the distance, went to Te Anau for lunch, then to Manapouri for a quick stop (missed the tiny book shop, which we should have stopped at), went to Gemstone Beach and hunted out some cool rocks. A very rough rugged coast and then a quick stop at Riverton for icecream before heading back to invercargill.
I could have happily spent more time at the beach though, even if it was cold.
The next day we then went to check out Curio Bay. This involved a stop at Slope Point. The true southern point of New Zealand’s South Island. This involved a walk to a sign post and a modern lighthouse. I enjoyed this walk. We then went on to Curio Bay. Honestly, we did not go to see any old fossilised tree trunks that you can see on the coast, wasn’t really interested. The location we were at made it difficult to access the coast anyways and I mainly admired the overall landscape instead. Then we started back home and stopped into an old school converted to a cafe called Niagara Falls Cafe for a late lunch. Now I feel the Niagra falls must be a joke as the waterfall in the area is tiny. I have not looked into why it was named this. Ok… I just looked it up and yeah the area and waterfall was named with humour.
For context we live at the top of the South Island and it is roughly an eleven hour drive to get to Invercargill. We did stay one night roughly the mid point of the journey to Invercargill and likewise on the way home.
On the way home, we left fairly early and made our way up to Cromwell and had a quick stop and look at the old part of town, then onto Wanaka. We wanted to go to Puzzling World. It is my second time there, last visiting when I was a child. We bypassed the maze (I suspect we will make another trip and spend more time here in the future) as we still had a long drive to get to our midpoint stay. The tilted house made me feel ill though, but overall a lot of fun. We carried on our journey towards the West Coast. It was a long journey but the scenery was nice. We stayed in Fox Glacier for the night. The next day was another long journey home. We decided to walk to the viewing of Franz Joseph Glacier and took the forest walk. I can’t really remember what it was like last time I went and we took a different track last time. We went for a coffee pit stop in the Village before continuing on home.
We happened to time it that the west coast was sunny for once and looked really nice. Anyways, we carried on and oh man after the long drive the day before, this one felt to take a long time. Reefton was another pit stop where we had a stretch and stroll to get icecream.
This trip was a very sight seeing type of trip. I did not mind as some of the places I had not been to, while others were re-visits.
Though I like exploring new places, I am happy to be home. In addition, I have collected a lot of reference photos to use in my art.