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Heading for the Home of Burt Munro

20/4/2014

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After a great dinner and a good sleep we greeted the morning with enthusiasm, albeit only after 9 am! We walked down the road to Nova Café. Lovely food, good service and reasonably priced. The day is off to a good start.

Checking out, we were very soon heading out of town - on a freeway! We were surprised, but, when it ended a short while later at Mosgiel, we concluded that Mosgiel must be a dormitory town for Dunedin. Although back to single lane, the countryside was much more attractive, with loads of sheep and quite a few cows as well. Without time pressure on us, we started taking turns as the whim took us, and we decided to visit the Parukanui Falls. These are a short walk off the road, through dense rain forest. The light was obscured in many places by the dense tree canopy and then pleasantly dappled here and there with sunlight. Liz slipped on a wet stair edge but was ok. OK, she was annoyed!  The falls are not high but are pretty. On the way back, we were quite taken with a hollowed out tree which was still growing out the top; and some birds that were calling strongly to each other.

Back at the car we decided to proceed along the road to wherever it took us. Good move. We found ourselves traveling along the coast where we took the opportunities to stop and take photos of the rather spectacular views. A lady chatted to us at one place and her New Zealand accent was so broad I had to really concentrate to understand some of her words!

We stopped at McLeans Falls for a pleasant lunch and proceeding down the road took another left turn. We should have turned right. Still, the drive to Curio Bay took us past the very pretty Waikawa Inlet and another wedding!

We retraced our path some twenty kilometres and then drove the remaining hour to Invercargill through the undulating countryside as the sky became darker. 

Invercargill is a small town. Five kilometres out from our motel we were still in the rural areas. The streets are very wide and, perhaps being Sunday, very little traffic was about. In regional New Zealand shops are closed on Sundays, as are many restaurants. There is not much choice here and we found a Thai place with unremarkable fare at a dear price. It would seem that food and petrol are very costly here, compared to Australia. 

Invercargill has one famous son. They made a very good movie about him, and he is why we have come to the southernmost city in New Zealand. Tomorrow we will visit his museum and see a replica of that Indian. After that Te Anau and Milford Sound.

To bed, struggling with the Nexus tablet more than I did in America. Liz has offered her iPad so I will try that this evening



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