Queen's Park "bench"
An eerie feeling swept over me as we pulled into Invercargill. Our sensory barriers were firmly in place thanks to endless warnings about the south island’s southern-most city being a horrible wasteland. So, it was in a daze that we slowly lowered our defenses to find tidy suburbia that could be Almost-Any-City, USA. As we rolled toward the heart of town I still couldn’t shake the feeling or pin down what my subconscious was picking up. Until, that is, I depressed the clutch and shifted into neutral to coast up to the red TRAFFIC LIGHT!!
Astounding birds at Queen's Park aviary. (Not native.)
It’s been months…five at least… since I’d been to a place with a truly modern heartbeat. Even Queenstown — adventure capital of the country — is quaintly free of traffic lights. And so it was this entry back into the “real world” that had me in a bit of a daze.
Invercargill — better known as Invers or In’gill — treated us like royalty. We stayed at a quirky backpackers with an overeager, well-meaning proprietor our first night. On a run the next morning I was shocked not to encounter another fitness-oriented soul. Wanaka — little international town that it is — is full of athletes and gives newcomers like myself an inaccurate sense of what New Zealand is all about. Despite it being Easter Saturday, the Farmer’s Market was still crawling with people. I fetched Pat, and we returned to enjoy our first passionfruit, local baked goods, and a carton of farm-fresh eggs.
The city's most recognizable landmark. Guess what it is...?
Having arrived on the eve of a holiday weekend, we were more or less forced to relax and do nothing. We debated at length the pros and cons of ticking Stewart Island off our NZ bucket list. All told, we decided getting a few miles from the mainland to see a few new things didn’t outweigh spending a few hundred dollars. Instead we treated ourselves to the British film “Paul” with scenes purported to take place just a stone’s throw from my hometown. To our disappointment, the “Moorcroft” in the film looked nothing like the real thing as the credits at the end of an otherwise enjoyable film would confirm.
children's playground
Highlights of the Southland Museum included learning about the sub-antarctic islands belonging to New Zealand, realizing the ‘roaring 40’s’ referred not to a decade but to winds circulating uninterrupted at said latitude, and seeing the ancient Totara lizard-relative in the flesh. We also got to visit Queen’s Park — a place sophisticated enough to attain the atmosphere of New York’s central park. Funky sculptures, well-tended gardens, a lush greenhouse, an astounding aviary exhibit, and a virtual petting zoo full of endless species made for an awesome afternoon. Before leaving town we capped off our Invers adventures with a visit to the picturesque water tower — the town’s most recognized landmark. More like a capitol building of days gone by, it was a nice finishing touch for our final moments in In’gill.
Photos that probably tell it better than I do by clicking here.
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