We drove through Invercargill in two lanes of traffic!! With traffic lights, cars and lorries and everything. This was quite a shock after all our twisty single lane carriageways with hardly another vehicle in sight.
The landscape is flat as a pancake for the first time that I can remember in the South Island.
At Bluff we stayed a short walk away from this famous sign. This is the touristy Southernmost point of the South Island (though we found one a bit further south again, about which more later…).
And had a delicious meal of locally sourced blue cod and chips, and a bottle of Wooing Tree (having seen said tree in the vineyard near Cromwell, near the jet boats in Queenstown). This is a curious wine; a white/roséish pinot noir. Very tasty!
We went up to a viewpoint and saw beautiful views of Stewart Island quite a bit closer now. It’s quite tricky to tell where the sky and cloud leave off and the land begins:
la perle 